Systems and/or methods for providing enhanced control over and visibility into workflows where potentially sensitive data is processed by different operators, regardless of current workflow task owner

ABSTRACT

Certain example embodiments relate to systems and/or methods for providing enhanced control over potentially sensitive data sharable among and/or between different parties. For example, certain example embodiments provide views into computer-enabled workflows managed by external parties, including views into what sensitive data has been accessed, who has accessed it, etc., e.g., throughout the lifecycle of a product granted on the basis of an analysis of such data. A computer-enabled system for automatically assessing received sensitive data in accordance with one or more digitized rule sets also is provided in certain example embodiments, as are computer-mediated tools for helping to automatically, semi-automatically, and/or manually resolve issues detected in the assessments, e.g., via enhanced communication and collaboration, among and/or between parties to a transaction, as well as third-parties who indirectly are involved in the transaction. The data remains secure and traceable, e.g., in accordance with its provider&#39;s specifications.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Certain example embodiments described herein relate to systems and/ormethods for providing enhanced control over potentially sensitive datasharable among and/or between different parties. For example, certainexample embodiments described herein provide views into computer-enabledworkflows managed by external parties, including views into whatsensitive data has been accessed, who has accessed it, etc. Acomputer-enabled system for automatically assessing received sensitivedata in accordance with one or more digitized rule sets also is providedin certain example embodiments, as are computer-mediated tools forhelping to automatically, semi-automatically, and/or manually resolveissues detected in the assessments, e.g., via enhanced communication andcollaboration.

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY

Every year, 5-7 million mortgages are originated in the United States.Obtaining a mortgage sounds simple enough when understood at an abstractlevel. The steps involved can be summarized as: (1) completing themortgage application, (2) submitting the application for processing andunderwriting, (3) receiving the loan decision, and hopefully (4) goingto a closing procedure.

Unfortunately, however, those who have even a passing familiarity withmortgages know that this seemingly parsimonious formula betrays reality.The actual process is often cumbersome, inefficient, and complex. Thepotentially vast number of manual tasks involved is one major reason forthese hurdles. Just a few examples of potentially cumbersome manualtasks include: (1) collecting information from disparate sources (e.g.,in connection with tax forms, employer paystubs, tax transcripts, courtdocuments such as divorce decrees, etc.), (2) employment status andincome verification (e.g., in connection with online services such asthe Work Number, manual calls, employer paystubs, etc.), (3) obtainingbank information (e.g., involving at least two months of bankstatements), (4) obtaining asset information (individual holdings,brokerage accounts, etc.), and (5) obtaining liability information(credit cards, mortgages, etc.). In addition to the time and effortinvolved in the collection of all necessary components, there is also aconcern about the validity of the information obtained. Manualcollection of data by human hands is prone to accidental errors,inaccuracies, and omissions. The potential for intentional misconduct,such as fraud or negligence, is present as well. Current approaches usedfor transferring information from mortgage lender to applicant createthe risk of these issues on all sides, i.e., both internal and externalto the mortgage lender.

The amount and type of information involved can require a significantamount of coordination between the applicant and the lender. In thisregard, one 2014 study found that total loan production expenses average$6,769 per loan, with $4,401 of that being in the form of personnelexpenses. In addition to the large amount of money required bymortgagees, mortgagers only make on average $897 profit per loan—whichtranslates into an average production profit of 42 basis points.

Curiously, the amount of coordination and communication that can berequired between the applicant and the lender can be both frustratinglyhigh and frustratingly low. An instance of the former case is whennumerous “back-and-forth” communications between the applicant and thelender may be needed to resolve issues that arise during theunderwriting process. For example, a lender might need to know where alarge gift came from, why there is a gap in employment, etc. Suchquestions may require more verification than usual, with the applicantgenerally having some idea of what information is being requested andwhy it is being requested.

On the other hand, applicants oftentimes have no insight into whathappens once a mortgage application is submitted. An applicant might notbe made privy, for example, to the following: (1) that a processor andan underwriter are engaged in conversations about details of theapplicant's financial profile, (2) questions raised while completing thereview, (3) the processor/underwriter's reasons for why clarification ofexisting information is warranted, (4) the processor/underwriter'sreasons for needing additional information from the applicant or (5) theprocessor/underwriter contacts the applicant with a urgent and/or lastminute request for additional information that presents real challengesfor the applicant to provide rapidly. Consequently, an applicanttypically has little-to-no insight into, much less control over, theprocess once an initial application is submitted. More specifically,applicants are often occluded from knowledge of what is done with the(potentially very sensitive) data they provide or have granted thelender access to, how often the data is accessed, or what data wasactually received or reviewed.

The issue with opaque procedures involved in handling an applicant'sdata is exacerbated after the mortgage is approved and executed. This isbecause after the mortgage execution, other parties may become involved,and they also may require access to the borrower's data. One instance ofthis further issue would occur if the mortgage is acquired in thesecondary mortgage market from the originator or another secondarymortgage lender. There typically is a laundry list of verifications thenew holder needs to perform to evaluate the mortgage, and many of theseverification include reviewing the borrower's data. For example, some ofthe possible analytics performed on the mortgage include: (1) verifyingthat the borrower's information is accurate and was properly acquired,(2) assessing whether the borrower's financial situation was properlyreviewed, (3) ensuring that any identified issues were appropriatelyresolved, (4) reviewing for correctness any calculations that wereperformed (such as debt to income ratio, cash flow analysis, etc.), (5)analyzing the underwriting process in general to check for anyprocedures not up to standard, (6) determining whether there have beenany material changes in the borrower's financial situation since theorigination that could affect loan repayment, and (7) additionalinformation which may be needed by the acquiring parties specific andevolving underwriting standards. Consider also the case of ongoingmonitoring, which arises in a number of instances. For example, in manycases, a borrower may not qualify for a loan under traditionalunderwriting scenarios, but a lender may be able to originate a loan anda third party may be willing to acquire the loan if the consumerconsents to ongoing monitoring of their financial situation. Thiscreates similar strains. Similarly, traditional credit scoring andevaluation methods do not always truly portray a borrower's ability torepay. For example, there are cases where a borrower who isknowledgeable in how a credit score is derived is able to successfullymanipulate their financial behaviors to ensure that their credit scoreremains in a range that meets underwriting guidelines. Such behaviorscan more easily be detected by analyzing all disclosed accounts andinformation, as well as other information sources available based on theconsumer's consent to identify those behaviors (e.g., paying one debt bygetting cash advances from their credit card). Conversely, the consumermay have a low credit score, either because of some situation thatoccurred a couple of years ago, or situations such as seasonalemployment leading to recurring late payments for 1 or 2 months peryear. A more in-depth and potentially ongoing analysis of the financialsituation (e.g., including a review of all disclosed accounts andinformation as well as other information sources available based on theconsumer's consent) may allow the lender to determine that this personmay indeed be able to receive a mortgage, especially if they havesecured the consumer's permission for ongoing access.

There are several other instances of the data handling issue thatdemonstrate how quickly issues proliferate. In addition to the initialverification steps done by the mortgage acquirer, there is also a needin certain instances to monitor the loan continuously to ensure that itremains viable throughout its life or at least until certain criticalstages in the loans lifecycle have been achieved and the originator'sunderlying liabilities have been reduced (e.g., in some cases a mortgageoriginator's liabilities for assessing a borrower's assets andliabilities goes away after a loan has been paid as agreed for a periodof N years). Often the mortgage holder will engage a mortgage servicerto accomplish this task and others. There is also the possibility that aloan modification could be triggered automatically (e.g., as a result ofan adjustable rate mortgage needing to be adjusted or because of a shiftin the loan-to-value ratio such that it no longer requires privatemortgage insurance) or because of actions undertaken by the borrower orlender, which would require a re-examination of data. Investors whoinvest in mortgage-backed securities also sometimes desire access tocertain data to evaluate the potential efficacy of their investment. Asshould be clear by now, there are many entities who either require ordesire access to certain pieces of information associated with amortgage. As already stated, one area of concern here is that theborrower/applicant is often not made aware of all of the entities thathave access to their data. This is a technical problem related to datasecurity, privacy data integrity, auditing, etc. Another issue, alreadyalluded to, is that the process of data collection (for all partiesinvolved) is usually cumbersome, confusing, time-consuming, sometimesinaccurate, and open to fraud. This is a technical problem associatedwith the ingesting of data (including sensitive data) from a pluralityof different sources and in a plurality of different formats. Stillanother problem to consider is that the processes of data transferencebetween interested parties is usually opaque and inefficient, meaningthe receiver may have no guarantee that the information is correct orcomplete. This is a technical problem relating to those areas discussedabove, as well as issues of provenance, etc.

Certain example embodiments address the above and/or other concerns.

Certain example embodiments relate to a workflow management system. Thesystem comprises processing resources including at least one processorand a memory coupled thereto, and a non-transitory computer readablestorage medium. The processing resources are configured to control theworkflow management system to at least: provide a user interface to auser of the workflow management system, the user interface beingconfigured to present to the user information concerning a status of amulti-step workflow being managed by and under control of anotherentity, the multi-step workflow including processing, on a computingplatform remote from and inaccessible to the user, user data, the userdata including user provided data and/or documents shared from thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium and data and/ordocuments authorized by a user to be provided; and responsive to atermination message received from the user and/or a predefined timeperiod elapsing, transmit a signal to the computing platform of theanother entity that the workflow is to be terminated, the signal causingthe computing platform to terminate the workflow regardless of what stepin the workflow is being processed, including regardless of whetherresponsibility for processing the current step in the workflow resideswith the user, the another entity, or a further entity that haspartnered with the another entity by request of the another entity.Other information may be considered in some instances, even though itmay not be provided by a consumer nor specifically authorized forconsideration by a consumer. This may include, for example, publicrecords data, data provided by the lender, data sources that the systemmay contract with that do not need consumer authorization/consent, datathat has been built up by the system (e.g., related to risk tolerance,local effect data, and/or the like), etc.

In certain example embodiments, a data management system comprisesprocessing resources including at least one processor and a memorycoupled thereto, and a non-transitory computer readable storage medium.The processing resources are configured to control the data managementsystem to at least: enable a user to define a plurality of differentlogical containers over time, each logical container being backed by thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium; receive sensitiveinformation from the user; retrieve sensitive information from externaldata sources where authorized by the user; store an electronicrepresentation of received sensitive information to the non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium; associate received sensitiveinformation with one or more logical containers; store, for each logicalcontainer, a set of rules identifying one or more other parties thathave access to the sensitive information associated with the respectivelogical container, and conditions under which those one or more partiesare granted access to the sensitive information associated with therespective logical container; grant electronic access to a given logicalcontainer, and the sensitive information associated therewith, to agiven party, conditioned on the set of rules associated with the givenlogical container; record data representative of direct and indirectaccessions of logical containers and/or the sensitive informationassociated therewith; and responsive to a user request for a givenlogical container, present to the user an indication of the party orparties that has or have accessed the given logical container associatedwith the user request. Each said logical container is reusable over timeby different parties based at least in part on corresponding updates tothe at least one set of rules. Each of (a) the collection of sensitiveinformation and (b) the content of each said logical container, isupdatable over time.

In certain example embodiments, there is provided a data analysis systemcomprising processing resources, including at least one first processorand a first memory operatively coupled thereto. A first data storecomprises sensitive data about a user, as well as a set of data sharingrules, with the set of data sharing rules indicating what sensitive datais sharable and one or more conditions identifying when such sensitivedata is shareable, and the sensitive data comprising informationelements. A second data store (which may be the same as or differentfrom the first data store) comprises at least one set of analysis rules,with the at least one set of analysis rules being system defined and/ordefined by an external party separate from the user. The processingresources are configured to control the data analysis system to at leaststore, to the first data store, sensitive information received from theuser and/or electronically retrieved from a data source external to thedata analysis system in response to the user providing appropriatecredentialing information for the external data source; receive, fromthe external party, a request to process a first predefined set ofsensitive information; and responsive to a request to process a firstpredefined set of sensitive information: determine one or more sets ofanalysis rules to be applied to sensitive information in the firstpredefined set of sensitive information, based at least in part on thereceived request; automatically and programmatically attempt to applyeach rule from each determined set of analysis rules to sensitiveinformation in the first predefined set of sensitive information; store,to the second data store, information about an outcome of the rules thatare successfully applied, the information being associated with thesensitive information on which the rules are run; and for each rule orset of rules that indicates that further action is required, re-assessan outcome of a respective rule or an outcome of a set of rules,responsive to at least one of: (a) automatic retrieval of furtherinformation from the user performed in connection with applicable datasharing rules, (b) application of a heuristic to sensitive informationalready in and/or added to the first predefined set of sensitiveinformation, (c) electronic receipt of further information from the useror the external party in response to a system-initiated electronicprompt for responsive information, and (d) a determination as to whetherthe indication that further action is required for the respective ruleor set of rules can be ignored based on input from the external party;and store, to the second data store, information about an outcome of therespective re-assessed rule or set of rules, the information beingassociated with the sensitive information on which the respective ruleor set of rules is run.

According to certain example embodiments, notifications may be sentunder a variety of different circumstances and to a variety of differentparties and under a variety of different communication channels. Forexample, remote termination of a workflow, completed rule application orrule re-application, updates made with respect to flagged issues,successful linkages to external data sources, successful uploads of newdocuments, etc., may trigger notifications. Such notifications may besent to consumers, other parties to a transaction or potentialtransaction, third parties, and/or others, depending on thecircumstances. Such notifications may be sent via email messages, SMSmessages, instant messages, system-to-system messages, over applicationprogramming interfaces (APIs), and/or the like.

Non-transitory computer readable storage mediums tangibly storinginstructions for performing the above-summarized and/or other approachesalso are provided by certain example embodiments, as well ascorresponding computer programs. Corresponding methods of operating,making, and/or configuring such systems also are contemplated herein.

Certain example embodiments may help achieve some or all of thefollowing and/or other technical advantages:

-   -   A reduction in data acquisition times, e.g., from days/weeks to        minutes, and the ability to potentially better understand what        data is needed and in at least some instances automatically        retrieve fully responsive data without direct human        intervention, e.g., based on predefined and user-configurable        rules as to what data can be shared, with whom, and when;    -   The enabling of secure collaboration between two or more parties        in real time, or at least near real time;    -   The ability to refresh data on demand from internal and/or        external sources, e.g., regardless of whether provided once or        multiple times and potentially in accordance with predefined and        user-configurable rules as to what data can be shared, with        whom, and when;    -   An ability to conduct analysis that would be impossible or at        least impractical to be done by a human;    -   The creation and maintenance of essentially tamper-free data,        e.g., sensitive data resistant to tampering by an applicant,        lender, or other party involved with a lending or other related        process;    -   Facilities for digitally-signed documents delivered to lenders        and/or other parties to protect against tampering and provide        verification;    -   Provision of ongoing monitoring when authorized by a consumer;    -   Enabling the sharing of access to consumer data with fine        grained control (e.g., the consumer gives the system access to        their online accounts, and the consumer shares what financial        accounts they are willing to share, while a lender does not get        access to their credentials so they can only see what consumer        shares; potentially enabling a consumer to only share native        and/or computed data elements such as, for example, e.g., cash        flow, current monthly rent, net worth, etc.);    -   Holistic data analysis (e.g., analysis across all information        available);    -   Machine learning/heuristic analysis, e.g., to help define and/or        refine analysis rules;    -   Containerization of data, e.g., to facilitate easy maintenance,        sharing, collaboration, etc.    -   And/or the like.

These features, aspects, advantages, and example embodiments may be usedseparately and/or applied in various combinations to achieve yet furtherembodiments of this invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features and advantages may be better and morecompletely understood by reference to the following detailed descriptionof exemplary illustrative embodiments in conjunction with the drawings,of which:

FIG. 1 is a high-level block diagram showing example components andfunctionality of a system designed and implemented in accordance withcertain example embodiments;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example computer architecture thatmay be used to implement the higher-level components and functionalityshown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing, at a high level, a process that aconsumer might use in registering with the system and enrolling accountin accordance with certain example embodiments;

FIGS. 4-26 are example screenshots showing a consumer enrolling accountsin accordance with an example embodiment;

FIGS. 27-30 show consumer account management and/or personal financialmanagement views in accordance with certain example embodiments;

FIGS. 31-33 show consumer binder management views in accordance withcertain example embodiments;

FIG. 34A-37B show consumer alert-related and alert response screens inaccordance with certain example embodiments;

FIGS. 38-50 are screenshots showing “lender workbench” features, inaccordance with certain example embodiments; and

FIGS. 51-55B are consumer portal views and sample documents that may beprovided by and/or to the system of certain example embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Certain example embodiments relate to a consumer-enabled “financiallocker” that helps reduce costs and risks for lenders, loan servicers,loan securitization interested parties, and/or others, by providingactionable financial data throughout the entire loan lifecycle, whilealso providing transparency and enhanced control over loan-relatedprocesses to consumers. For example, certain example embodiments areable to provide some of the following and/or other features:

-   -   A borrower consent and access-controlled portal that provides        transparency to the borrower, e.g., throughout the loan process;    -   One or more platforms for enhancing collaboration among and/or        between the borrower, lender, underwriter, loan servicer, and/or        others;    -   Real-time (or at least near real-time) verification of assets,        deposits, key liabilities, bank transactions, and income;    -   Access to other financial sources such as, for example, tax        transcripts, Social Security Administration data, real estate        records, credit report information, etc.;    -   A flexible rules and workflow engine enabling lenders,        underwriters, and/or others to specify criteria for, for        example: (1) identifying key issues than need collaboration        between lender and borrowers, (2) identifying issues where        further information or review is needed, (3) granting loans, (4)        making exceptions to allow for variations to loan-related        policies, (5) indicating who may grant exceptions, (6) ongoing        monitoring of data shared to identify when the a consumer's        situation has changed and review and action may be needed, (7)        when a loan is sellable and/or purchasable, (8) evaluating the        quality of a loan portfolio, etc.;    -   A calculator for ability to repay type calculations (e.g., in        connection with historical data to determine behaviors, cash        flow analysis, residual income predictions, etc.);    -   A mechanism for certifying bank statements and/or other        historical financial information;    -   Reporting and/or monitoring for emerging default and/or other        warning signs;    -   Etc.

FIG. 1 is a high-level block diagram showing example components andfunctionality of a system designed and implemented in accordance withcertain example embodiments. FIG. 1 is a more conceptual view, and itwill be appreciated that it may be “backed” or otherwise supported bycomponents such as those shown in the more detailed architectural blockdiagram presented in FIG. 2, which is discussed in greater detail below.In any event, as shown in FIG. 1, a consumer financial locker module 102provides a portal for a consumer to create a locker to simplify theirfinancial life. This may in some instances be as straightforward asgenerating a username and password for their financial locker, or theymay use their User ID and Password from a service with support for theOAuth protocol for re-using their credentials between multiple services(e.g., their Facebook account, Google account, Microsoft Live Account,or their Yahoo Account). Furthermore, the user must enroll forMulti-Factor Authentication by providing a phone number where the systemmay call or text the consumer to further validate the legitimacy of theuser. Once enrolled in the system, consumers may also use the consumerfinancial locker module 102 to enroll accounts and upload documents,thereby providing the consumer a single location to maintain multipleelements of their financial life. More specifically, a consumer mayprovide access to the information contained in their online bankaccounts, brokerage accounts, credit card accounts and/or the like.Concurrently, they may also provide releases so that paystubinformation, tax transcripts, and/or the like may be retrieved fromexternal sources. Once this second enrollment procedure is completed,consumers may manage access rights to such information. They are able tocontrol which information they wish to share, who it is shared with, andfor how long the external party can access it. The binder (or othercontainer) is the vehicle that the consumer will use to manage theseaccess rights. If the consumer applies for some financial product, suchas a mortgage or benefit, they will create a binder to hold the accountsand other data they wish to disclose for the application process. Theymay need to disclose things such as checking accounts, brokerageaccounts, tax transcripts, etc. It is possible all of the requestedinformation or information the consumer wishes to disclose may notalready be in the consumer's locker and the consumer can not only enrollthat information into their locker but also place it into the binder forthe party. The party that the consumer is applying can request thatcertain assets, liabilities, or income be included in the binder, butthe final decision for disclosure is left in the hands of the consumer.Likewise, the party may request that the consumer grant access for acertain period of time or extend access previously granted, such as theentire life of a loan, but the consumer is able to either approve therequest or only authorize a timeframe they are comfortable with.Consumer enrollment information, together with account enrollmentinformation, access rights, etc., may be stored to a suitable datastore.

A rules engine/financial analysis module 104 retrieves data from thirdparties, e.g., as authorized by the consumer and/or as requested by athird party. For example, the rules engine/financial analysis module 104may obtain tax transcript data at the request of a mortgage lender,provided that the consumer authorizes such information to be released tothe mortgage lender. It then applies predefined business rules, e.g., toidentify items that have been flagged as needing further review,additional documentation, or collaboration with the consumer. Forinstance, a business rule might indicate that a gap in employment oflonger than 6 months should be flagged for follow-up. If so, the rulesengine/financial analysis module 104 may then notify a mortgage lenderof this item being flagged, request further explanation from themortgage applicant (consumer), require specialized review within amortgage lender, etc. As another example, a business rule might indicatethat a large and apparently non-recurring deposit to a checking orsavings account should be verified and, thus, a consumer may be notifiedto provide supporting documentation or the like. In a similar vein, therules engine/financial analysis module 104 performs financial analysis,e.g., assessing metrics such as ability to repay, residual income,future scoring, risk assessment, and/or other calculations. Suchcalculations may be based on system-specific guidelines, lender-specificguidelines, investor—specific guidelines, industry wide guidelines,and/or the like. Additionally the rules engine/financial analysis module104 may flag items for further review at the detail level, and thensubsequently mark items as resolved based on other informationidentified or based the total picture painted by the informationdisclosed. Conversely the rules engine/financial analysis module 104 maylook at the total picture painted by the information disclosed andsubsequently flag additional items for input from the consumer ormortgage lender (e.g., the rules engine/financial analysis module 104may identify that the consumer's debt to income ratio is too high and goback deposits at a lower level than normal to request furtherinformation to determine if there is additional income which may be usedto improve the debt to income ratio). The rules engine/financialanalysis module 104 may be invoked either by a workflow in the mortgagelenders platform, the internal workflow engine, or by a request manuallyoriginated by the mortgage lender (e.g., a loan has taken longer thanplanned and it requires more up to date data be retrieved and analyzedto determine if the consumer's situation has changed). Whenever data isretrieved and/or new analysis is performed by the rules engine, copiesof the data and/or analysis will be placed inside the consumer's binderand the consumer, at their option, can be notified of the new dataand/or analysis being provided to the receiving party.

A monitoring module 106 monitors for changes to consumer financial dataand issues alerts as appropriate, e.g., during loan origination, for thelife of the loan, or some other period of time based on what theconsumer consented to. The monitoring module 106 may also allow apotential investor in a loan or portfolio of loans to assess the qualityof a loan or portfolio of loans before acquiring them as well ascontinuing to monitor the loans in their portfolio. The monitoringmodule can be configured to run on a periodic basis and then, based oncertain business rules, determine if an event has occurred whichrequires further analysis by the rules engine/financial analysis module104. As a mortgage moves from origination to the day-to-day servicing(e.g., billing, questions, interaction with the consumer, makingmodifications, handling short sales and foreclosures, etc.), themonitoring module 106 can be engaged to stay apprised of the consumer'sfinancial situation (if the consumer has or does grant permission for itto do so). This shift from origination to servicing and loan performancemonitoring and management invokes a new rule set designed to monitorcontinuously for notable updates, such as a significant change in theborrower's or guarantor's income, asset's, liabilities, etc. Anotherpurpose of the monitoring module 106 is to increase transparency for allparties involved in the lending process. It accomplishes this agenda byinserting copies of all data retrieved and any analyses performed intothe relevant binder. Additionally, the consumer may choose to benotified every time his or her data is accessed, or any time alerts areput on some of the data, even when it is outside of the conventionalpurview of consumer monitoring, control.

A collaboration/documentation module 108 generates several collaborationviews. A consumer collaboration view may present the following: (1)commentary and requests for further information, (2) the ability toupload additional documentation, (3) a collaborative interface forcommunicating with one or more parties in the mortgage lenderorganization, (4) information concerning the linking of data (e.g., thelinking of a deposit to its source and/or subsequent withdrawal), and/or(5) a mechanism to perform linking (including being able to enroll newdata sources and upload information when it is not available from anonline data source) between various elements of the consumer'sinformation (where appropriate and when such linking was not able to beperformed by the rules engine). Lenders, servicers, and/or other thirdparties may have a collaboration view in which they can communicate withand/or otherwise receive information from/provide information to theconsumer, share internal commentary, show flagging of items, flagadditional items, remove flags from items, close reviews, etc. Perhapsmore generally, the collaboration/documentation module 108 helps shareinformation so that consumers and/or third parties can conduct reviewrelevant to their business practices. The collaboration/documentationmodule 108 can create letters of explanation that disclose all itemsidentified by the rules engine/financial analysis module 104 asrequiring further input. This includes inputs such as those provided bythe consumer directly, via mortgage lender personnel (e.g., informationprovided verbally, via email, fax, etc.), or any documentation providedto support the input. The letter is then presented to the consumer forsignature either via the internal e-signing capabilities, integrationwith external e-sign services, or preparation for traditional wet-inksignatures, etc. The collaboration/documentation module 108 also createsdocuments and documentation packages which may contain as little as oneportion of the data (e.g., a bank or other statement, a portion of abank or other statement, the summary of the liability represented by asingle credit card, etc.) to a complete collection of all dataretrieved, all data provided, all analysis performed, letters ofexplanation, and any additional data. The specific contents of adocumentation package are configured based on the using party's needs,the party receiving the documentation package's needs, and the specificuse cases of the documentation package. The documentation package cantake the form of system to system data feeds, data files, spread sheets,documents (e.g., Microsoft Word, Portable Document Files, etc.) and canbe provided at any appropriate point(s) in the process to one or moreparties in the process (e.g., the mortgage lender could get a feed ofthe raw data (unprocessed data as soon as it is retrieved), and aparallel or independent copy of that data could be provided to otherparticipants in the mortgage origination process, at any point in theprocess).

An access tracking and control module 110 manages the process ofenforcing primary access that has been granted by the consumer,including that primary access may be transferred to another party or ifthe party with primary access shares that access with one or moreaffiliated parties. Primary access is the access granted to the currentholder of the mortgage application or the mortgage, and the primaryaccess holder may then transfer the primary access to another entity,thereby relinquishing their ability access or share the binder otherthan to access data retrieved during or prior to their tenure as primaryaccess holder. The primary access holder may also share their accesswith other parties in the lifecycle of the loan during their tenure asprimary access holder. Any party who the primary access holder sharestheir access with typically cannot further share that access. In thelifecycle of a loan, mortgage, financial transaction, or other datasharing/collaboration exercises between a consumer and a 3^(rd) party,it is a common occurrence for a consumer's data access permission totransfer to a new party once the party that holds it has completed theirwork and no longer needs to retrieve new data (if the consumer hasconsented to such a transfer). Transference of access happens, forexample, when an originator sells a closed mortgage to an investor, whocould then sell it to another investor as part of a bundle of mortgages.In the case of this transfer, it is the responsibility of the accesstracking and control module 110 to ensure that the previous holders ofprimary access to the consumer's shared data can no longer retrieve newinformation, but can still retrieve any information they had access towhile they were the primary access holder. It is also the responsibilityof the access tracking and control module 110 to ensure the new primaryaccess holder can only access the information the consumer has grantedthe primary access holder access to along with the information that wasretrieved by prior primary access holders. When a primary access holdershares their access with an affiliated party, the access tracking andcontrol module 110 is additionally responsible for ensuring theaffiliated party only accesses data that is consistent with the accessgranted to the primary access holder by the consumer, and alsoconsistent with any additional restriction placed on the access to theconsumer's data by the primary access holder (e.g., an investorpurchases a loan from an originator, and then contracts with a servicerto handle the day to day care of the mortgage; to facilitate theservicing of the loan, the servicer may need access to all or part ofthe data which the investor has access to when they gained primaryaccess to the data shared by the consumer).

An audit portal 112 allows parties to validate information thatpreviously has been provided. The audit portal 112 may, for example, beused by internal quality assurance specialists to check on the status ofapplicants, approved mortgage applications, the integrity of data thatis being provided, etc. Acquirers, outside auditors, securitizationentities, and/or others may also validate the authenticity of dataprovided by a lender, investor, servicer etc.

It thus will be appreciated that the consumer financial locker 102, therules engine/financial analysis module 104, the monitoring module 106,and the collaboration/documentation module 108 form a logicalrepresentation of consumer financial situation 114, whereas the rulesengine/financial analysis module 104, the monitoring module 106, thecollaboration/documentation module 108, and the audit portal 112 form alogical representation of application integration 116. The latter mayinclude application integration between a loan application system, loanorigination system (LOS), a servicing party, an automated underwritingsystem (AUS), quality control system, other products and services thecustomer may choose to utilize and where they need to share one or morecomponents of the consumer's financial situation with other parties andsystems.

Information from internal and outside data sources 118 may be integratedinto the system via a data source integration layer 120 that isultimately in communication with a document, data, and audit vault 122and the data store 124. As alluded to above, the document, data, andaudit vault 122 may store information about enrolled consumers, enrolledconsumer accounts, rules applied by the rules engine(s), analysisperformed, audit trails (e.g., for flagged items and possible attemptedresolution activities), documents, etc. The data store 124 may serve notonly for data retrieved with the consumer's consent or provided by theparties a consumer has agreed to share their data with, but also as astore for data backing future model and score development, analytics,risk assessment, machine learning, and/or other features.

FIG. 1 shows example outside data sources 118 coming from: dataaggregators such as Yodlee, Fisery (CashEdge), Intuit, ByAllAccounts,etc.; the IRS for tax transcripts or the like; etc., as well as for taxdata such as e-filed retrieved directly from tax software providers,derived from tax return processing software providers which extract taxreturn data directly from tax return documents and provide the extracteddata along with some basic analytics of the data, payroll systems likeADP, etc.; pay statement data from sources such as, for example, WorkNumber, ADP, etc.; and LOS data such as, for example, loan applicationdata, credit reports, data specific to a lender, investor or servicerprocesses, internal data sources, etc. It will be appreciated that otherdata sources may be consulted in place of, or in addition to, theseexamples.

The functionality implied by the components of FIG. 1 may be used inconnection with a number of different use cases, e.g., as set forthbelow.

First Example Use Case

A first example use case relates to a computer-implemented approach inwhich a consumer enrolls his/her financial accounts, stores financialdata, and permits the sharing of such financial data with third partiesof his/her choosing for a time period of his/her choosing, whileproviding traceability as to the source of the financial information tothe third-parties. Elements of that information needing further revieware identified, and a mechanism facilitating that review is provided. Inthis vein, a consumer creates a persistent account and enrolls one ormore of their financial accounts. Information about the enrolledfinancial accounts, as well as any information the consumer uploads, isstored in the persistent account. A mechanism is provided to aid inretrieving historical data from the consumer's enrolled financialaccounts and in periodically retrieving updated information from theconsumer's financial account. This is done to create a repository foreach of the consumer's financial accounts that contains both historicaland recent detailed financial data, with the possibility of a currentfinancial data as well. The repository's provides the consumer withfinancial management tools and a rich set of data the consumer can sharevia a container with third parties.

A party other than the consumer may request that the consumer give thatparty access to information about the consumer, regardless of whethersuch information is held within the consumer's persistent account, mustbe retrieved from one or more of the accounts enrolled, or may requirethe consumer to enroll additional accounts. The request from that partymay be presented to the consumer so that consumer may create a containerwhich defines what data that party may access and grant them access tothat container. The accounts or data placed into the container may comefrom accounts currently enrolled in their persistent account,sub-accounts of the online financial accounts that have been enrolled,data that has been stored in the persistent account, etc. In cases wherethe where the account is not already enrolled in their persistentaccount, the consumer may enroll the accounts that the party hasrequested access to into their persistent account and then share themimmediately by placing them into the container, upload the requesteddata to the persistent account where it is not available from anenrolled account, etc. The consumer is able to create a container thatidentifies all accounts, sub-accounts, and data that the consumer wishesto share with the party, and is able to grant that party access to allthe accounts and data referenced in the container. The consumer maydetermine the period of time that such access is permitted, whether suchaccess can be shared from one party to another, etc. The time period maybe specified in absolute terms (e.g., a specific date/time) and/or withreference to an event (e.g., until an application is approved/denied bythat party or another party, until revoked by the consumer, for the lifeof a loan, etc.).

A workflow is initiated, and it facilitates a number of operations thattake place cooperatively among and/or between different parties. Forexample, the workflow facilitates the retrieval of information fromfinancial accounts and data identified in the container for a party towhich the consumer has granted access. The retrieved information may betransformed into an internal representation appropriate for the systemand/or the specific party with which it is being shared. Using the rulesengine, rules are applied to the retrieved information, e.g., toidentify potential items that require further review or analysis. Therules may be specific to that party, the system, the industry, etc. In asimilar vein, calculations about the consumer's financial status,ability to support an anticipated financial transaction, etc., are made.The rules engine and/or calculations may be applied against individualitems of data retrieved from each data source, across all items of aparticular set of financial information retrieved from a data source,information retrieved from multiple data sources, and/or all retrievedinformation. A list of items to be addressed may be generated based onthe business rules analysis of the data, various analytics, andcalculations individually or in combination. Items may involve theidentification of missing pieces of information (e.g., because anapplication was incomplete) or requests for further explanation as tocertain facets of the consumer information (e.g., the source of a largegift, an absence of paystubs for a prolonged period of time, a regularoutgoing amount of money, etc.).

Based on the analysis of the corpus of data about the consumer and thelist of items to be resolved (if any), a next action is determined. Thenext actions may involve any one or more of the following and/or otherdeterminations and/or actions. One determination that might be reachedis that no action is required, and all items which were flagged beingmarked as no longer needing further analysis and/or explanation andtherefore resolved.

Another determination that might be reached is that the items areappropriate for the consumer to address. In this instance, the consumermay be notified of the need to review the items identified and provideadditional explanations, data, and/or documentation. This may includeproviding the consumer with a portal through which the informationretrieved, the items that were identified as needing further review,information regarding why additional information is required, how theconsumer might resolve the issue, etc., may be seen. The consumer, athis/her own choosing, can respond to any or all of the items for whichadditional information is sought. In cases where the consumer providesadditional information, the additionally provided information can beimmediately reprocessed by the rules engine, e.g., to identify whetherfollow-up information is needed, whether the additional information issufficient to satisfy a perceived need, whether manual review by anotherparty is needed, etc.

Still another determination that might be reached is that the items thatrequire further review are not appropriate for the consumer to address(e.g., IRS tax transcript data where the tax transcript document islargely unfamiliar to the consumer, and the most efficient way toaddress any items needing further review is having a party with accessto the container use the flagged items guide their discussions and datacapture activities with the consumer). In this case, the party may benotified that it needs to review the items identified and provideadditional explanations, data, and/or documentation. This may includeproviding the party a portal through which the information retrieved,the items that were identified as needing further review, informationregarding why additional information is required, how the party mightresolve the issue, etc., may be seen. The party at its choosing canrespond to any or all of the items requiring additional information. Incases where the party provides additional information, the informationcan be immediately reprocessed by the rules engine and algorithm engineto identify if follow-up information is needed. The party may indicatethe consumer needs to provide additional information, that its review iscomplete as to some or all items, etc. It will be appreciated that theseengines may be implemented together or separately in different exampleembodiments. Similarly, different executable modules may be run on thesame or different computer hardware components in different exampleimplementations.

Based on an updated analysis that takes into account the new datarequested, the new updated data provided and processed by the rulesengine, etc., the workflow engine will determine the appropriate nextstep(s). This may involve routing a request to the consumer for yetfurther information, routing a request to a third party for its reviewand information input, routing a request to a more senior person ormanagement personnel within the party to perform a final review (of allitems addressed and any remaining open items) in order to close theinformation review process or re-route for additional action,determining that the information review process has been concluded(e.g., because of information provided by the rules engine, as directedby the consumer or another party, etc.), and/or the like.

The consumer is provided with a report, which potentially includes: (1)all data shared with any another party (whether such data wasspecifically requested by another party or was automatically retrievedby the workflow and/or rules engine), (2) the items that were identifiedby the rules engine, (3) the notes or data entered by the consumerand/or the party, (4) additional artifacts entered by either theconsumer or another party, (5) results of analysis performed (possiblyexcluding any indications for fraud or other wrongdoing), (6) anidentification of the financial account data which was retrieved oranalyzed, etc. Similarly, the party may be provided with a correspondingreport and/or a subset thereof, potentially formatted as a feed or otherappropriate data package that is meaningful to the party.

It will be appreciated that the financial data involved in this exampleuse case may include real-time transaction data, real time balance data,historical transaction data, historical balance data, tax data, incomedata, and/or other data and documents the consumer needs to share withanother party. It also will be appreciated that the consumer may be amortgage applicant or some type of financial guarantor related to thetransaction, and that the other party may be a mortgage lender in someinstances. In other instances, the party may be a third party to amortgage transaction and therefore may be, for example, a loan servicer,internal or external auditor, or other party.

Second Example Use Case

A second example use case relates to a computer-implemented approach inwhich a third party requests information from financial accounts,financial sub-accounts, and/or other data that the consumer hasidentified in a container that the third party (e.g., a party who theconsumer has designated directly, or a party that has to some extent“stepped into the shoes of” such a party, e.g., through the sale of amortgage, sharing with or the transference to a servicing entity, etc.)has access to in a manner which provides traceability as to the sourceof the information, while also identifying elements of that data thatneed further review and providing a mechanism to facilitate that review.In this regard, a request to access accounts and/or data identified inthe container is received from the third party. A determination is madeas to whether access to the container is appropriate, e.g., based onwhether access was previously granted by or is currently being grantedby the consumer, whether previously granted access has ended because ofexpiration of the access, an event has occurred which ended the accessgrant, the consumer has revoked access for the third party, the thirdparty has transferred the access to another third party (e.g., a lenderoriginates a loan with a consumer, and then sells the loan to aninvestor, the lender originating the loan loses access to the containerand the investor gains access to the container, assuming the consumerhas consented at some point the access being transferred or shared),etc.

A workflow is initiated that facilitates a number of operations whichtake place cooperatively among and/or between different parties. Forexample, the workflow facilitates retrieval of information fromfinancial accounts, financial sub-accounts, and/or other data the in thecontainer to which the third party has been granted access. Theretrieved information may be transformed into an internal representationappropriate for the system and/or the specific party with which it isbeing shared. Using a rules engine, rules are applied to the retrievedinformation, e.g., to identify potential items that require furtherreview or analysis. As above (e.g., as noted in connection with thefirst use case), the rules may be specific to that party, the system,the industry, etc. In a similar vein, calculations about the consumer'sfinancial status, ability to support an anticipated financialtransaction, etc., are made. Also as above, the rules engine and/orcalculations may be applied as against individual items of dataretrieved from each data source, across all items of a particular set offinancial information retrieved from a data source, informationretrieved from multiple data sources, and/or all retrieved information.A list of items to be addressed may be generated based on the businessrules analysis of the data, various analytics, and calculationsindividually or in combination. Based on the analysis of the corpus ofdata about the consumer and the list of items to be addressed (if any),a next action is determined. The next actions may involve any one ormore of those set forth in detail above. Based on an updated analysisthat takes into account the new data requested, the new updated dataprovided and processed by the rules engine, etc., the workflow enginewill determine the appropriate next step(s), e.g., as set forth above.Reports also may be generated as set forth above. Also as above, thefinancial data that is involved in this example use case may includereal-time transaction data, real time balance data, historicaltransaction data, and/or historical balance data.

Third Example Use Case

A third example use case relates to a computer-implemented approach formonitoring (e.g., periodically, on demand, when issues are detected,etc.) data from the financial accounts, financial sub-accounts, and/ordata a consumer has identified in a container that a party has accessto, e.g., in a manner that provide complete traceability as to thesource of the information and complete transparency to the consumer,while identifying elements of that data that need further review andproviding a mechanism to facilitate that review. In this regard, adetermination as to whether a party who has access to a container hasidentified that it wishes to monitor all components identified in thecontainer, or just a subset of the accounts, sub-accounts, and/or dataidentified in the container. Access rights to the data are checked,e.g., as set forth above, and invalid requests may be removed from anautomatic or periodic polling system and, depending on theconfiguration, the party who requested the access is automaticallynotified.

A workflow is initiated, and it facilitates a number of operations thattake place cooperatively among and/or between different parties. Forexample, the workflow, based on rules defined for the monitoring,retrieves and/or refreshes information from the container, asappropriate. The retrieved information may be transformed into anappropriate format, and a rules engines applies rules to determinewhether there are any items and/or situations that should be called tothe attention of the monitoring party.

Using the rules engine, rules are applied, and calculations areperformed on the data, e.g., to determine the consumer's financialstatus, whether there is anything in the information suggestive of apotential impact on the consumer's current relationship with and/orproduct provided by the party, etc. The rules engine may be used forthis and/or other purposes on some or all of the information. As above,items that might require attention are identified, and determinationsare made as to whether to follow-up with any action and, if so, whatparticular follow-up action should be taken. Based on an updatedanalysis that takes into account the new data requested, the new updateddata provided and processed by the rules engine, etc., the workflowengine will determine the appropriate next step(s), e.g., as set forthabove. Reports and/or data feeds also may be generated as set forthabove. Also as above, the financial data that is involved in thisexample use case may include real-time transaction data, real timebalance data, historical transaction data, and/or historical balancedata.

Based on these and/or other scenarios, further use cases may be providedin connection with different example embodiments, e.g., as will beappreciated from the description that follows. It will be appreciatedthat these use cases may have aspects related to the transitioning ofaccess throughout the lifecycle of a loan or other financial service orproduct, the ability to provide documents for consumer signature, anapproach for exposing or otherwise disclosing progress to the consumerthroughout the loan process, allowing a consumer to select a period ofaccess and revoke access at any time, transparency for all parties toand/or interested in a loan application, an audit portal,consumer-initiated and/or consumer-responsive updates to a container(e.g., add/delete accounts, provide further information, etc.), and/orthe like.

Example Implementation

An example implementation will now be provided, e.g., in connection withthe FIG. 2 example architectural diagram, and the flowcharts andscreenshots that follow. It will of course be appreciated that thefunctionality described herein may be implemented in connection withdifferent hardware backbones and/or different front-end graphical userinterfaces. Thus, the description that follows is provided by way ofexample.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example computer architecture thatmay be used to implement the higher-level components and functionalityshown in FIG. 1. As FIG. 2 includes end user terminal(s) 202 a-202 n.These end-user terminal(s) 202 a-202 n may be used by consumers (e.g.,to submit financial account credentials, credentials for other relevantaccounts such as tax related accounts, payroll accounts, etc.,documents, consent to access other data sources such as credit reports,and other similar information, respond to requests for furtherinformation from lenders or others, define binders and access rightsthereto as discussed in greater detail below, etc.), lenders or others(e.g., to facilitate the review of submitted applications, initiaterequests for more information, etc.), and/or others. The terminal(s) 202a-202 n may include processing resources such as, for example, one ormore processors 204 and a memory 206 operably coupled thereto. Thememory 206 may include operating system software 208, as well as browser210 or other stand-alone application software that facilitatesinteractions with other systems, e.g., as described in greater detailbelow. The I/O interface(s) 212 facilitate the receipt of informationfrom users and may include, for example, keyboards, mice, scanners,and/or the like. The network interface(s) 214 provide a communicationslink with the communications network 216 which may be, for example, theInternet or the like.

External data sources 218 a-218 n may represent one or more of thefollowing and/or other systems from which data may be obtained: one ormore banks, the IRS, brokerage houses, public information sources,credit rating services, payroll facilitators, tax software providers,etc. The external data sources 218 a-218 n also may include processingresources such as, for example, one or more processors 220 and a memory222 operably coupled thereto. The memory 222 may include operatingsystem software 224, as well as a database management system 226 thathouses data retrievable by the system, e.g., when appropriatelyauthorized. Similar to the above, I/O interface(s) 228 and networkinterface(s) 230 are provided.

Data provided by the end users and/or from the external data source maybe stored to one or more secure data stores 200. The one or more securedata stores 200 may be accessible via the communications network 216 andmay include, for example, user-provided data, data retrieved from theexternal data sources 218 a-218 n upon the request of a consumer, rulesas to who can access such data and when such data can be accessed, etc.The one or more secure data stores 200 may be backed by a server orother computer related computer hardware, etc. It will be appreciatedthat the one or more secure data stores 200 include non-transitorycomputer readable media.

Using information from the one or more secure data stores 200, thecertification/data processing system 232 may facilitate the review ofdata from applications, data retrieved from the data sources outlinedabove as well as other data sources, documents and other files, datasources that do not require consent from the consumer to retrieve data,data sources that are created within the system based on techniques suchas, for example, analytics, heuristics, machine learning and other datascience techniques and technologies, workflow collaboration, and/or thelike. In this regard, the certification/data processing system 232 mayinclude processing resources such as, for example, one or moreprocessors 234 and a memory 236 operably coupled thereto. The memory 236may include operating system software 238, as well as a rules engine 240(which may be implemented as hardware, software, and/or the like) thatoperates in accordance with analysis rules 242. The Analysis rules maybe system defined, vendor specific, and/or the like. The rules mayspecify conditions for flagging issues with applications and/or dataprovided. The rules may be simple or complex, and they may beimplemented as logical statements that can be evaluated, heuristics,scores, computations, models, and/or the like. The rules may bepredefined and/or machine learned over time in a supervised and/orunsupervised manner. Similar to the above, I/O interface(s) 244 andnetwork interface(s) 246 are provided.

When requested, the certification/data processing system 232 may attemptto retrieve consumer information from the data store(s) 200 and, if datasharing rules permit, identify and run a set of rules from the analysisrules 242 using the rules engine 240. Results may be communicated to theconsumer, loan originator, and/or other parties. Additional informationmay be requested to help resolve issues, etc., and the system as a wholemay facilitate the sharing of data and cooperative resolution of suchissues.

The various network interface(s) 214/230/246 may include network cards,wireless transceivers, application programming interfaces, and/or thelike. The OS software 208/224/238 running on the various hardwareelements may be the same or different. That is, the various computingdevices may be a part of a heterogeneous computing environment. Thecommunications network 216 may include the Internet as noted above,and/or one or more LANs, WANs, VPNs, and/or the like. Data may be passedacross the communications network 216 in an encrypted format.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing, at a high level, a process that aconsumer might use in registering with the system and enrolling accountsin accordance with certain example embodiments. As shown in FIG. 3, instep 302, a consumer signs on or enrolls in the system. The consumer isable to enroll specific accounts and/or provide additional informationin step 304. This may include, for example, the creation of a binderthat facilitates the sharing of accounts, sub-accounts, documents,and/or other information. The binder itself may be thought of as alogical grouping of some or all of financial and/or other informationthat a consumer wishes to share with third party. The consumer may alsoprovide directions to the system to enroll accounts from banks,brokerage institutions, credit cards, irs.gov accounts, etc. The systemmay include interfaces to facilitate the capture of such informationsuch that, for example, the user need simply provide a username andpassword for such accounts, together with an optional indication as towhich accounts or sub-accounts should be enrolled, etc. Previouslyenrolled accounts, sub-accounts, and/or other information may be addedto a binder. It will be appreciated that multiple binders may be createdand that the contents of the binders may vary.

In step 306, a binder is shared. This involves the consumer indicatingthat the binder may be shared and optionally specifying who the bindermay be shared with, how long the binder may be shared for, and whatpurposes the binder may be used. Once a binder is shared, the consumermay be provided with visibility into who is using the data, how it isbeing used, when it is being used, what analysis is being performed onthe data, whether any notes or documents are created with reference tothe binder, etc. Consumer personal financial management (PFM)capabilities are also provided as a consumer benefit in step 308. Instep 310, the consumer has access to the consumer portal, through whichit is possible to access a PFM dashboard, access details of enrolledaccounts and/or enroll further accounts (or delete or modify existingones), access details or binders and/or create further binders (ordelete or modify existing ones), access alerts created by the system(e.g., on behalf of another party), participate in collaborativeactivities with other parties, etc.

It will be appreciated that the FIG. 3 process may be initiated by theuser, or in response to a request from a lender that has perhapsreceived a “normal” or “paper” mortgage application and seeks toredirect a consumer to the system of certain example embodiments.

FIGS. 4-26 are example screenshots showing a consumer enrolling accountsin accordance with an example embodiment. FIG. 4 is an example welcomescreen and, as shown in FIG. 5, a consumer can use an existing accountto login to the system, or a new account may be created. If the systemreceives a request from a lender or other requesting party, the requestmay be held for a certain amount of time (e.g., 14 calendar days) sothat the consumer can login or create an account and seamlessly respondto the request. The request may be tied to the consumer's email address,social security number, and/or the like. In certain example embodiments,the system may send an email or other notification to a consumer once arequest has been received from the lender.

The FIG. 6 screenshot shows a consumer logging in using an existingaccount, and the FIG. 7 screenshot shows a consumer beginning theprocess of creating a new account. The use of Oauth (e.g., in connectionwith Google, Facebook, Microsoft Live, etc.) also may be supported.Multi-Factor Authentication may be implemented to help with high risklogins in case the Oauth provider is ever breached, or other similarissues arise.

FIG. 8 shows the consumer creating a binder in response to a requestfrom another party. The consumer is taken through a directed process toenroll their financial accounts for the first time, provide access topreviously enrolled accounts from their persistent account, uploaddocuments (e.g., tax returns), and/or upload any other information oraccount they wish to disclose to the other party. The consumer may namethe binder at the time of creation and can later edit the binder toselect a picture (e.g., from a list of stock pictures) and color toassociate with their binder. The consumer may be given the opportunityto review existing binders and the accounts contained therein, and theconsumer may copy and edit that binder to create the new binder.

Although this and the following screenshots represent a scenario inwhich accounts that need to be disclosed come from the lender, it willbe appreciated that other scenarios are possible. For example, it may bethe case that the lender specifies a minimum set of accounts to beenrolled and/or information to be provided. As another example, a lendermay only provide the consumer's email address and loan number, and theconsumer will have to self-direct the enrollment. In still other cases,the consumer may take the initiative to create a binder prior to anapplication being lodged and to optionally send the binder to one ormore parties to streamline the process, determine options or securemultiple offers.

As shown in FIG. 8, after a consumer has either logged in or created anaccount, they are taken directly to their pending binder request(s) fromthis lender. The binder request that needs to be completed wasdetermined by email that contained a link that identified this specificbinder request, or the consumer was redirected to the web site by a linkthat specified this binder request from the party requesting access tothe consumer's financial data. In the event that the consumer had loggeddirectly into the web site and they have never enrolled accounts intheir locker, if there is a pending request, the consumer will be takendirectly to the pending request to begin the account enrollment andbinder creation process. If the consumer already has accounts enrolled,the consumer will see the binder request in his/her alerts and can clickthe alert to navigate to begin the binder creation process. As can beimagined in other embodiments the specific workflow the consumer may beoffered to enroll accounts and create containers to share theirinformation can change significantly. FIG. 9 shows the accounts thelender is asking to access. Typically, in the process of a consumerapplying for a mortgage, these accounts would have been disclosed on theloan application or would be additional information the lender knowswill be needed (e.g., IRS tax transcripts for mortgages). The lendersends over to the system a request for whatever accounts, documents,reports, and other information they would like the consumer to providethem access to, and the system auto-populates the FIG. 9 with suchinformation. The process shown by these screenshots corresponds to ascenario where the consumer does not have most of the requested accountsenrolled. If the consumer does have one of these accounts enrolled andit is clear which account the consumer needs to place in their binder,it may be suggested for automatic inclusion in the binder, or theconsumer may be given a chance to select which financial accounts from apreviously enrolled online account should be included to fulfill therequest or whether enrolling a new online financial account is required.It is possible for a consumer to have multiple online accounts with asingle institution so it is critical for the consumer to make sure theyare including the correct online account and the correct financialaccounts from within each online account.

The consumer is then taken through a process to enroll or provide accessto each account shown. In FIG. 9, once the consumer clicks ‘startenrolling’, they are taken to enroll their first account in the request,which is Bank of America in this example. The consumer is presented inFIG. 10 multiple potentially matching institutions. The FIG. 10 screenmay be used to select which online bank account is the correct one forthe Bank of America account entered on the loan application. Certainexample embodiments provide suggested accounts that are believed to bethe closest match and/or enable the consumer to perform a moreexhaustive search.

The FIG. 10 screen alternatively or additionally may notify the consumerif the consumer already has the selected online account enrolled andconfirm whether the consumer wants to use it in this binder. Certainexample embodiments prevent consumers from duplicating online accountsfrom the same financial institution (which may be facilitated byuniquely identifying accounts with a financial institution ID andconsumer ID). Certain example embodiments enable consumers to selectfrom all previously enrolled online financial accounts in case with acertain account or accounts were somehow omitted from the request fromthe lender and another account should be associated with theapplication. The consumer ultimately selects which of the financialinstitutions shown is the same as the institution identified in therequest.

FIG. 11 is a screenshot that aids in “capturing” the consumer's User IDand password for the Bank of America online account. A progressindicator on right shows 25% progress for Bank of America online accountenrollment. Below that are the other entities the lender has requestedthe consumer provide access to. If the consumer has forgotten thepassword, a link is provided to go to the lender's website to get orreset the password. For online bank, brokerage, and credit cardaccounts, certain example embodiments will not store the user's passwordand instead will only pass it through to an aggregation service (whichmay provide the connectivity to multiple unique data sources via acommon application programming interface and a standardized data modelso that the user of these data sources does not have to deal with theeach one independently and each of their unique characteristics in termsof how to retrieve data and their specific data models) which allowsauthorized parties the ability to (with the consumer's consent and theconsumer provided User ID or equivalent, password, and otherauthentication data) access the online financial accounts from a widevariety of entities including but not limited to: bank, brokerage,credit card, mortgage, other liability, insurance, and other accounts.

Once the consumer enters the User ID and password for this institution,a determination is made as to which data aggregation service will workbest for the selected institution for this consumer. Program logic mayhelp to determine the best aggregation service to use for this consumerand institution based on factors such as, for example, which aggregatorssupport the institution, what the system's internal rating score for theaggregator is with this institution, costs for the aggregator, whetherthe consumer has multiple accounts with this aggregator, completeness ofdata, quality of data, etc.

The process of authenticating the financial account with the User ID andpassword provided by the consumer may take a while (e.g., typicallyabout 1-2 minutes, but also perhaps higher or lower). Certain exampleembodiments therefore may continue this authentication process in thebackground and allow the consumer to proceed with the next institutionin line, e.g., Chase, as suggested in FIGS. 12-14B.

As shown in FIGS. 14A-B, the enrollment of the consumer's Chase accounthas reached a point where they are waiting on Chase to validate theircredentials so they are moved to the next financial institution on thelist which is Fidelity

As shown in FIG. 15, in the main content area, Bank of America (thefirst institution enrolled in this example) has now moved to theforefront, preempting the consumer enrolling their Fidelity onlineaccount. Two things have occurred, namely, (1) the consumer has reacheda logical breaking point in the enrollment process (e.g., the consumer'scredentials are being validated with Chase, and is about to begin theenrollment process with Fidelity), and (2) Bank of America has indicatedthat it needs further input from the consumer, the consumer'sauthentication has failed, or the authentication is complete. Asillustrated in FIG. 15, Bank of America has indicated it needs furtherinput from the consumer in the form of the consumer providing an answerto one of the secret questions the consumer has on file with Bank ofAmerica. Once the answer is provided, the workflow moves forward.

In one mode of operation, the system would present information for Chaseor the next institution in line if Chase is still processing theconsumer's login credentials while Bank of America validates the answerto the security question. In the FIG. 15 example case, however,confirmation was provided very quickly and, thus, an indication isprovided that the consumer has completed the enrollment of the Bank ofAmerica online account. All of the sub-accounts (e.g., checking,savings, brokerage, credit card, etc.) will be enrolled automatically inthe persistent account. In certain embodiments, all of the sub-accountsmay also be automatically selected to be placed in the binder and theconsumer is provided the option to de-select sub-accounts they do notwish to include in the binder. In other embodiments, no sub-accounts areautomatically selected, but they may be highlighted to suggest these arethe account or accounts the consumer may want to enroll. This typicallyoccurs when the party submitting a binder request includes in therequest not only the desired financial institution name, but also thespecific account numbers or portions of account numbers that they desireaccess to. When the account numbers are provided, if one or more of theaccounts retrieved from the financial have account numbers that matcheither partially or completely, those accounts will be highlighted, butnot selected. If matching account numbers cannot be identified, then theconsumer will have an opportunity to match the accounts provided by thefinancial institution to those identified in the request. The user mustexplicitly select which sub-accounts to place in the binder. In thisexample as illustrated by FIG. 16, the consumer has selected two ofthese sub-accounts is being placed in a binder that will be shared withanother party (e.g., a lender) and thus the system will allow that partyto retrieve info from these sub-accounts.

FIG. 17 shows that Bank of America has moved to ‘Successfully Enrolled’,and the presentation, in effect, returns to where the consumer left off.Chase is still busy processing the consumer's credentials, so theconsumer starts the process with Fidelity.

FIG. 18 shows the consumer they already have a Fidelity online accountenrolled in their perpetual account so they only need to confirm this isthe correct online account. It is possible the consumer has multipleonline accounts with Fidelity (or any other institution), and if thatwas the case the consumer would be shown the all of the online financialaccounts enrolled for the institution along with the underlyingfinancial accounts to both to aid the consumer in identifying thecorrect online account, and to ease the selection of the financialaccounts to place in the binder. If the consumer determines that thepreviously enrolled Fidelity online account is not the correct one, thenthey would choose “No, enroll another” and begin the enrollment processfor Fidelity just as they have done for Bank of America and Chaseearlier in this example. If the consumer accidentally selects to enrolla new Fidelity online account and uses the same User ID as was used fora Fidelity online account enrolled in their perpetual account, thesystem will detect this and inform them that the account is alreadyenrolled. They will then be given the option to provide a different setof online account credentials or to use the previously enrolled onlineaccount. An alternate embodiment may be based on a particularsub-account type for Fidelity included in the request, which candetermine whether a consumer may use a previously enrolled account(e.g., the consumer has enrolled two Fidelity online accounts, one ofwhich contains 2 brokerage sub accounts and a retirement account andanother which contains one brokerage sub account and one checking subaccount, but no retirement accounts. The request, however, indicatesthat the desired sub-account is a retirement account. It then would notshow the consumer any of the previously enrolled Fidelity onlineaccounts as an option, and instead would take the consumer directly toenroll a new Fidelity online account which contains the retirementsub-account). For this example the consumer is going to use theirpreviously enrolled Fidelity account which, as a result, means theFidelity online account enrollment need not be repeated.

FIG. 18 shows the consumer the sub-accounts from this Fidelity onlineaccount, and the consumer may simply select the sub-accounts to beplaced in the binder.

As shown in FIG. 19, a Chase screen returns to the forefront to completea security question or other multi-factor authentication. The type ofmulti-factor authentication used, if any, may be specified by thefinancial institution, their level of trust with the aggregator, and(potentially) consumer preferences.

FIG. 20 shows how Chase sub-accounts may be selected such that they areplaced in the binder for sharing.

In certain embodiments, at the time enrollment, the consumer may beasked whether the consumer has any additional accounts they need toenroll and then have the ability to provide the ability to add otheraccounts either not requested by the lender, or a screen that enablesaccounts to be enrolled if there is no received request for specificaccounts. In the latter case, the consumer may reach this screen afterpassing through the initial login information and/or after eachsuccessive account is enrolled.

In FIG. 21, the consumer is given the option to add additional accounts.In cases where the consumer has received a request for the accounts toenroll, the consumer can enroll an online account they may haveforgotten to disclose to the requesting party and place the necessaryfinancial accounts into their binder. In the case where the consumer iseither simply enrolling their financial accounts in their persistentaccount for use with the personal financial management features or forcreating a binder which they may proactively share (e.g., push) to oneor more parties. This allows them to add accounts until they haveenrolled and/or shared all of the accounts needed.

In addition to requests based on information disclosed by the consumer,the lender may also make requests for accounts to be enrolled ordocuments uploaded (tax transcripts, tax returns, pay statements, etc.)based on standard information needed to complete the lending process.One of the requests from the lender in this example was for access tothe consumer's tax transcripts. As shown in FIG. 22, if the consumeralready has an irs.gov account, ask the consumer to share thecorresponding login credentials.

If the consumer does not have an irs.gov account, then certain exampleembodiments will help the consumer understand what it is and how tocreate one. This is shown in FIG. 23.

FIG. 24 corresponds to an indication that the consumer has one or hascreated one based on the tutorial information they may access from FIG.23. As a result, the consumer simply provides login credentials. Unlikethe case with most financial institutions, in certain examples theembodiment may persist login information in the system directly (e.g.,in an encrypted format) when the embodiment directly accesses thefinancial institution or other data source without the use of anaggregator or other intermediate 3^(rd) party. In certain embodiments amechanism may be provided to allow for the consumer to complete an IRSForm 4506T, print it, sign it, and upload it so that the lender, a3^(rd) party provider, or the system can submit to the IRS to obtain thetax transcript.

As shown in FIG. 23, a consumer may be shown videos, documents, etc., tohelp understand what a tax transcript is, what it is used for, and howan irs.gov account can be created.

Once the consumer has provided irs.gov credentials, FIG. 25 shows theconsumer which tax transcripts are available. The consumer is able toselect which tax transcripts to place in the binder, includingpre-authorizing the release of future tax transcripts as they becomeavailable and/or as needed, e.g., for the length of time the binder isavailable to the other party (lender) or subsequent parties. Theconsumer can also download and view the transcripts so that what isbeing shared can also be seen directly by the consumer. In certainexample embodiments, the required transcripts may be automatically addedto a binder (e.g., based on business rules defined by a lender, thecurrent and past two tax transcripts may be added to a binder, etc.)with the consumer's consent.

FIG. 26 where the consumer confirms that the binder is to be shared. Italso may enable the consumer to select the time period the other partyhas access to the binder (e.g., for the loan origination period,origination period+3 years, or for the life of the loan). Each timeperiod may be tied to specific product offerings, risk profiles of theconsumer, and/or benefits made available to the consumer in conjunctionwith the financial product(s) applied for. For the period of time theconsumer has granted access, a party holding primary access to thebinder may transfer that primary access to the binder to another party(the new holder). In such scenarios, the prior holder will lose accessto the binder for new information. This situation may arise if a lendersells the loan to another party that also has rights to use the systemin certain example embodiments. If the loan is sold to a non-customer ofthe system, the selling customer would lose access (no longer would holdthe binder), and the acquiring entity would not have access, but couldget access (become the holder) if they become a customer. In someinstances, a one-time report may be shared, with some, all, or none ofthe information being redacted. A primary access holder of the bindermay also share its access with other customer(s) (e.g., if a lender usesa third party to service the loan, both the lender and the servicer maybe provided with concurrent access to the binder). Only the primaryaccess holder of a binder may share access to the binder with othercustomers, or transfer the binder to other customers.

Behind the scenes, once a consumer has completed the creation of abinder requested by a customer (holder of the binder) the holder orholder's system is notified the binder is available. Depending on therequirements of the holder, the binder may remain in a suspense statewaiting for the holder or holder's system to request processing of thebinder, the binder may immediately move to being processed, or othervariants which ultimately lead to the binder being processed. When abinder is processed the data will be retrieved from all data sources(sub-accounts of online accounts, online accounts, etc.) which the partyhas been granted access to. Using a rules engine, rules are applied tothe retrieved information, e.g., to identify potential items thatrequire further review or analysis. Once the retrieval and rulesprocessing is completed the binder enters a state where it is ready forreview. Depending again on the requirements of the holder of the binder,the consumer may be notified they need to review their binder and beginthe collaboration process, the holder or the holder's system may benotified the binder is ready for review and the holder or holder'ssystem can initiate the review process, or other variants whichultimately lead to the binder review process being initiated. In someembodiments, raw data may also be provided with or without theapplication of business rules to the holder and/or any other party theholder has shared access with.

FIG. 27 is an example of the consumer's dashboard for their persistentaccount (locker). Most prominent is their personal financial management(PFM) dashboard, which represents all of the financial accounts theconsumer has enrolled in the system. This view is independent of anybinders that the consumer has created. In certain example embodiments,the data may be filtered or viewed on a binder-by-binder basis. Certainexample embodiments may, from the time a consumer enrolls the accounts,begin amassing detailed data so that another party (with the consumer'sconsent) can be presented with a much deeper view into the consumer'sfinancial performance, as well their historical behavior. This sort ofholistic view can help reduce risk for the lender and potentiallyprovide the consumer access to products that they may not otherwise beable to access, and/or provide the consumer with access to betterproducts than they could get based on short term views into theirfinancial information. From here the consumer also sees alerts that needtheir attention, where alerts can include notifying the consumer thereare items in one or more of their binders that need attention, informingthem that one or more of their online accounts need attention (mosttypically to provide an updated password if the consumer has changed thepassword to their online account), the financial institution may wish tore-verify access via the aggregator by having the consumer respond to amulti-factor authentication challenge, or other item where consumeraction is needed. The consumer sees notifications which can be itemssuch as an authorized party has retrieved data, access to a binder hasbeen transferred to another party, access to a binder has been sharedwith another party, or other item the consumer has chosen to be notifiedof but which requires no further action of the consumer.

An example of a screen that may be presented if a consumer clicks in tosee details behind one of the widgets is shown in FIG. 28. In thisparticular case, FIG. 28 is showing the details behind the consumer'sbalance sheet for all online accounts enrolled in the perpetual account.A complimentary set of financial management views (e.g., cash flow,balance sheet, categorization, etc.) may be shown to both the consumerand the lender, for the financial accounts that the consumer has sharedin a binder. Since the consumer may not have disclosed all onlineaccounts and/or all sub-accounts in a binder, only the consumer may seethe financial management views for the overall perpetual account. From aconsumer-facing perspective, the term “locker” can be usedinterchangeably with the term “perpetual account” used elsewhere in thisdocument. If everything enrolled in a user locker is placed into abinder, then these financial management views will be the same betweenthe locker as a whole and the binder. Conversely, if only a subset ofthe financial accounts enrolled in locker are shared in a binder, thenthese financial management views may be very different.

FIG. 29 is an example of the consumer's view of the accounts in theoverall locker. Here, the consumer can see the near real-time balancesfrom all financial accounts contained in the enrolled online accounts.The consumer can also see how many binders each online financial accounthas been shared with, can click that to see the specific binders, etc.In this regard, FIG. 30 is shown when the consumer has drilled into theChase A-Z Book Sellers Visa Card account to see near real-timetransaction level detail.

FIG. 31 provides an overview of the binders the consumer has created. Inthis case, both binders are active. As can be seen, the one on the leftwas just created, whereas the one on the right has been present for 5years but is still active because the access period has not yet expired.From here, the consumer can click on the binder to see details regardingthat binder. The consumer can also select to see the history of thebinder. History of the binder may include, for example, who the consumeroriginally provided the binder to, all parties the binder has beentransferred to (if anyone) (e.g., for a loan that was sold by theoriginating lender to a party that will securitize the loan), who hashad access shared with them (e.g., ABC Mortgage sells the mortgage toXYZ Securities), etc. When the first scenario occurs, ABC Mortgage willtransfer the binder to XYZ Securities, and ABC Mortgage will no longerhave access to new data about the consumer, at least in certain exampleembodiments. In certain example embodiments, ABC Mortgage may retain theability to continue to access all data that was placed in the binderwhile ABC Mortgage held the primary access, which may be beneficial froman audit and/or other perspectives. XYZ, as the new primary holder, willhave access to all data from the creation of the binder, and all dataadded to the binder during XYZ Securities' is the primary access holder.Assume further that XYZ Securities does not have the ability to servicethe mortgage, so they contract with Easy Loan Servicing, which means XYZSecurities shares their access with Easy Loan Servicing. Easy LoanServicing cannot further share with other third parties as currentlyembodied, but possibly future embodiments could provide this capabilityin the future as long as the access granted by the consumer is strictlyenforced. Thus, a selective potentially sub-delegable delegation ofviewership rights may be provided, e.g., into some, all, or none of abinder. It will be appreciated that such rights may vary over time,e.g., as further actions are taken with respect to the underlying loaninstrument.

Also, as indicated above, the consumer can create a binder independentof any request from a lender. Thus, at some point in the future, theconsumer could push the binder to multiple potential lenders or otherproviders of a financial product, service, or benefit to the consumer.Also, at some future point, the consumer could share their binder withanother party where they may not be the direct applicant for orrecipient of a loan or other financial product or service, but insteadmay serve as a guarantor or other participant in a commercial loan orother transaction.

FIG. 32 is a detailed view of all financial accounts, other accounts,and documents the consumer has placed in the binder, organized by onlineaccount. An online account may be thought of as a unique financialinstitution/online account User ID pair. Therefore, it is possible tosee a financial institution like Bank of America show up more than onceif the consumer has multiple online accounts with Bank of America. Inthis case, multiple Bank of America tabs would appear, one for eachunique Online Account User ID for that institution. For each onlineaccount, the actual financial accounts (sub-accounts) that areaffiliated with this online account are shown. This may include actualbank, credit card, brokerage, and/or other account(s), or equivalent(e.g., tax years in the case of IRS tax transcripts) that were shared inthe binder. A consumer may select to include one or more financialaccounts in a binder. When an online account is actually enrolled, allfinancial sub-accounts may be automatically enrolled in the consumer'slocker, allowing for possible inclusion in a binder. Sub-accounts thatwere selected from each online account for inclusion in this binder alsomay be shown. In certain embodiments the consumer may choose to addand/or remove financial accounts included in the binder, as well as addand/or remove online accounts from the binder.

Certain example embodiments may also show how many items have beenflagged (items marked by the rules engine, processor or underwriter haveidentified a binder, financial account, or line item as needing furtherreview) for all financial accounts from this online account. The countmay include all flagged items, e.g., with the color of the flag beingbased on the highest level of flag applied to all of the financialaccounts included in the online account (e.g., if there are four itemsflagged yellow and one red, the flag color across the Financial Accountsfrom this Financial Institution/Online Account will be red).

By clicking on the Financial Institution/Online Account, the consumerwill be taken to a view with all of the financial accounts for thisFinancial Institution/Online Account. The consumer may then beginresolving flagged items or collaborating with the lender, as discussedin greater detail below. The consumer may also view all alerts acrossall Financial Institutions/Online Accounts before beginning theresolution/collaboration process.

Somewhat similar to the balance sheet shown above in FIG. 28 for allonline accounts and the contained financial accounts, FIG. 33 is afinancial management (balance sheet) view based not on what is enrolledin the system as a whole for a given user, but rather on the specificfinancial accounts and/or documents placed into a specific binder.

FIGS. 34A-34C show all flagged items across all financial accounts in agiven binder. The consumer can click on any flagged item to begin thecollaboration/resolution process, as described in greater detail below.This list may be narrowed down in a number of ways. For instance, FIG.35 is showing the consumer only the flagged items from a specificfinancial account, which helps simplify the process by segmenting thework into manageable chunks. After resolving the flags items for onespecific financial account, the consumer can then move on to the nextfinancial account. As another example, FIG. 36 is a screenshot showingthat the consumer can filter the view of flagged items by specific dateranges.

In the FIG. 37A view, the consumer has clicked on a flagged item to helpaddress the question raised by the rules engine and/or theprocessor/underwriter, which relates directly to why the item wasflagged. In this case, a deposit to the consumer's Bank of Americaaccount was found (via the rules applied by the rules engine) to exceed20% of the consumer's annual income. Regardless, the consumer can changethe reason for the deposit, which would prompt the rules engine to applyrules to evaluate both the level of flagging applied (e.g., red, yellow,green) and/or provide notes for consumer or binder holder. In the notessection, the rules engine has placed further information about why thistransaction was flagged. The consumer may use the notes section to placecomments that further explain the transaction, as well as upload anynecessary supporting documentation and the binder holder may use it toplace comments responding to the consumer. It is possible, based onspecific configurations of the system, that this item could be flaggedand then auto resolved by the rules engine.

Selecting a reason from a set of predefined options in a drop down menumay cause business rules, the analysis engine, and/or other algorithmsto be re-applied with a range of outcomes. These could run the gamutfrom potentially providing the consumer additional details oninformation or explanations needed (e.g., the consumer selects thereason of ‘Gift’ and additional instruction is provided in the notessection indicating a gift letter is required, what a gift letter mustcontain, and even a link to where the consumer can download a templategift letter) to changing the flagged state of the item under review,automatically resolving the issue based on the additional informationprovided, and/or other items. The consumer may provide additionalinformation such as: (1) providing no additional information, (2) typingsome explanatory text, (3) uploading a supporting document, (4)utilizing a provided template (e.g., downloading a template documentsuch as a gift letter, editing it as appropriate, getting it signed anduploading it), (5) identifying a new online account that needs to beenrolled (e.g., a consumer selects that the reason for a $5,000 depositis a transfer from an un-enrolled brokerage account), (6) walking theconsumer through enrolling an additional online account if needed, andselecting the appropriate financial account, and (7) if the consumerdoes not want to grant access to the brokerage account, uploading thecorrect brokerage statement with the line item highlighted. In certaininstances, the consumer can also send the lender questions, and thelender can send responses as well as ask the consumer questions.

In FIG. 37B, the consumer has selected ‘gift’ as the reason for thisdeposit. Once ‘gift’ is selected, the rules engine selects to-be appliedrules based on this reason, the type of loan and it's specificrequirements related to a gift, and other factors, to provide specificguidance which is shown in the notes box telling the consumer to providea gift letter, providing a link to a template document that may be usedto ensure the gift letter the consumer creates has the appropriatecontent, then some other specifics to help insure they provided thecorrect information and documentation without addition re-submissions.In this case, the consumer has created the needed gift letter, attachedit to this transaction, and provided a note back to the lender.

Another example resolution for this deposit could be this was awithdrawal done via check from their Fidelity account. They could selectwithdrawal from Fidelity Brokerage account and note this was awithdrawal done via check from their Fidelity account and possiblyattach a copy of the cancelled check if available or, using the note,the lender might know to look for the corresponding check when reviewingthe consumer's Fidelity account in the binder. If the consumer did notplace the necessary Fidelity brokerage account in their binder, but theydid have another Fidelity financial account already in their locker,they could select ‘transfer from Fidelity’ from the drop down reasonmenu. They would then be prompted to select which financial account fromtheir Fidelity online account they wish to add. Once added, the rulesengine would reapply the necessary rules. If many cases where funds aretransferred between accounts, the rules engine may be able toautomatically identify and link these transfers and the consumer simplyhas to provide notes explaining the transfer and/or uploading supportingdocumentation.

Once the consumer has addressed as many flagged items as possible andindicated they are done, or when they logout of their current session,the Reviewing Party (loan processor, underwriter, or other party) willbe notified that there are items in the binder available for review. Incertain embodiments, the consumer can make updates to a particularflagged item, and as soon as the consumer has closed that flagged itemthe lender can see that update to enable near real-time collaboration.

The workflow can be configured so that, for example, once theapplication of the business rules, analysis engine, and/or otheralgorithms is/are applied, the binder with the flagged items can beshown to the consumer for the resolution process to begin; the bindercan first be shown to the lender for the lender to review and decide ifmodification to the flagging done by the business rules, analysisengine, and/or other algorithms is desirable before making availablesuch entries to the consumer; the lender can decide that it does notwant to ask the consumer to use the online resolution and collaborationprocess and that it will work with the consumer where the lenderactually completes the resolution process with the consumer providingdata external to the system; etc.

In certain embodiments, the platform used by a Reviewing Party may betightly integrated with the system. In these cases, the Reviewing Partymay be taken directly to the binder they need to work on without everneeding to authenticate the platform, at least in certain exampleembodiments. As part of this tight integration between the lender'splatform and the system, certain example embodiments may pass the binderthe Reviewing Party is supposed to work on, the username of theReviewing Party, and other information to securely authenticate theReviewing Party to the system.

In other cases, the integration may be much more loosely coupled andwill be necessary for the Reviewing Party to log into the systemdirectly to gain access to the binder. FIG. 38 is an example of a loginscreen the Reviewing Party might see when a loosely coupled integrationis in place. FIG. 39 is an example showing how the Reviewing Party mayview which binders have the highest severity issues where they mayselect one of the binders for further attention. FIG. 40 provides a viewof all binders assigned to the Reviewing Party where they may review,reassign, or take other actions on the binder. They are provided a highlevel overview of the binders in their work queue, with ones that need(possibly immediate) attention highlighted. The Reviewing Party can fromhere sort the work queue based on the due date, the loan number, theseverity of flagged items in a binder, the loan (product) value, thetype of loan (product), etc. Depending on the privileges of a givenReviewing Party, the Reviewing Party may be able to re-assign a workitem to another user. As can be envisioned, the authentication process,level of integration, whether a work queue is presented, how a binder isnavigated to, and other integration and security mechanisms may varyfrom embodiment of the system and based on the particular system tosystem integration requirements of each implementation.

A comparable screen may be provided to let a manager see users who havetoo much in their work queue, overdue binders, etc., as well as takeactions like reassigning work based on a user being out of the office,etc. For example, FIG. 41 is a screenshot showing where they may selectthe user to reassign of work to another user. This example screen allowsadditional information to be provided to the person to whom the work isbeing reassigned.

FIGS. 42A-42C are the view of a binder presented to the Reviewing Partyeither directly by them selecting to see the binder from their platform,or by selecting it from selection screen shown in FIG. 39 or FIG. 40.FIG. 42A is view of a portion of the binder where Reviewing Party cansee various binder summary views such as Spend Categorization, BalanceSheet, Cash Flow, and internal communication that is only accessible tothe entities processing the binder. Data in the binder contains dataretrieved from data banks, brokerages, credit cards via an aggregator,pay data from payroll providers or aggregators, tax transcripts, dataextracted from uploaded documents, and/or the like. The reviewing partymay also place notes into the binder, and these notes may only beaccessible to other members of the reviewing party's organization oroptionally with entities they have shared the binder with or transferredthe binder to, but not the consumer. They will also see all of the itemswhich the rules engine has flagged and can expand each of the line itemsto view the reason (if any) selected by the consumer, plus notes anddocuments (if any) provided by the consumer. The Reviewing Party maychange the flagging level (level of concern) or unflag an item (appliedby the rules engine and/or another processor, underwriter or otherparty). From this expanded view of each line item, the Reviewing Partymay select or change a reason, add notes, upload additionaldocumentation, and/or mark the item as resolved. This view of the bindershown to the Reviewing Party may also show items flagged by the rulesengine that are not shown to the consumer for resolution due to theconsumer's lack of familiarity with them (IRS Tax Transcripts shown inFIG. 42C are one such example). The consumer will have visibility to allitems flagged (excluding items which may include fraud or wrongdoing),in this instance they simply will not have the ability to collaborate onthese items which they are most likely unfamiliar with.

If the Reviewing Party clicks on the graphic for Spend Categorization,Balance Sheet, Cash Flow or other provided financial summary of thebinder, they will be taken to a more detailed view. FIG. 43 shows thatmore detailed view for the Balance Sheet.

When the processor, underwriter or other party expands a line item theycan see any consumer provided reasons, documents, and comments as shownin FIG. 44. The processor, underwriter or other party may, afterreviewing the information, leave the item as unresolved and provide theconsumer additional feedback in the notes. Alternatively, as shown inFIG. 45, the Reviewing Party (after reviewing both the reason the itemwas flagged and the information provided by the consumer) chooses tomark the item as resolved, changing the color coding on the item togreen.

There may be cases where a mortgage lender chooses to work directly witha consumer to address items flagged by the rules engine, the consumer isunwilling to respond to the requests for additional information aboutitems in their binder, or the consumer does not know how to respond tothe issues identified. As shown in FIG. 46, the Reviewing Party will seeno information has been provided by the consumer. The Reviewing Partymight then collaborate with the consumer outside the system, butdocument the results of that collaboration within the system which makesall of the information available to the consumer is the system shouldthey ever desire to see the information gathered and enter by theReviewing Party. If those collaborations provide adequate information,the Reviewing Party (Mike Smith) may then mark the item as resolved asshown in FIG. 47. When either the consumer or reviewing party isselecting the reason to explain a particular item, they may choose froma list reasons that not only include stock reasons, but also includereasons that are customized based on information the consumer hasenrolled in their financial locker or which they have provided to theirlender or other party they have shared their binder with (e.g.,financial accounts, employers, etc.). In FIG. 48, the list of reasonsshown includes their Fidelity Brokerage Account and their spouse'semployer, Mod Shop Interior design. The Reviewing Party (Mike Smith),after consultation with the consumer, has selected ‘Transfer fromFidelity account’ as the reason, recorded the consumer's explanation andmarked the item as resolved in FIG. 49.

The bottom of FIG. 50 shows a number of actions which are available tothe Reviewing Party has once they complete their review. The specificoptions shown are determined by the actions available to the ReviewingParty. They can notify the consumer they need additional information andreturn the binder to the consumer for further action, gather additionalinformation from the consumer, mark remaining items as resolved, or (ifsufficient information has been gathered to complete the review of thebinder) and the reviewer has the needed permissions) close the review.At any point during the review process, the reviewing party can see adraft of the letter of explanation being generated for the consumer asshown in FIG. 51 and FIG. 52. While the rules engine and analysis enginemake recommendations on which items to include in a consumer disclosureletter, the Reviewing Party during the process of reviewing itemsflagged by the rules engine and analysis engine may also determineswhich flagged items rise to the level of being included in thedisclosure letter.

FIG. 50 reflects actions that might take place upon the completion ofbinder review in accordance with certain example embodiments. In manycases, only users with a specific privilege to close out review of abinder can perform that action (e.g., in some cases this may only be anunderwriter or a manager). FIG. 53 shows one scenario consumer may bepresented with the after the lender has closed the review of the flaggeditems in the binder that the consumer has shared for this loan. In thisparticular case all items have been marked as resolved, but just becausereview is closed, however, does not mean all flagged items have beenresolved, and it is quite possible that certain items may remain asunresolved in the binder either because the contemplated transactioncould not be approved or sufficient items were resolved that theremaining concerns no longer needed to be resolved to complete thetransaction. The consumer can still click on line items to open thedetails in order to see the reasons selected by either the consumer orthe Reviewing Party for a line item, the notes by both the consumer andthe Reviewing Party about the binder, financial account, or line item,but the consumer can no longer change anything about any of these items.In certain embodiments, the consumer is then presented with an option toreview a letter of explanation that shows the items that were flagged,the reason for the item as given by the consumer or the lender on behalfof the consumer, any supporting documentation, etc. If a disclosureletter is available, a link may be provided once the binder review isclosed by the lender, e.g., as shown at the top of FIG. 53.

FIGS. 54A-54B provide an example letter of explanation prior to signingby the consumer. As alluded to above, the consumer can see all of theflagged items where the reviewing party has determined a letter ofexplanation is necessary, the reason provided to explain the flaggeditem, any discussion between the Reviewing Party and the consumer, etc.The ability to see the supporting documentation attached by the consumeror the Reviewing Party on behalf of the consumer is also provided. Atthis point, the consumer can either indicate that there is agreementwith the letter of explanation, or that he/she has concerns. In thelatter case, the system may capture the concerns and return the binderback to the lender for further action.

On the other hand, if the former is the case, one or more of thefollowing and/or other actions may occur. If the lender is going to havethe consumer wet-ink sign the letter of explanation, the system canprepare a PDF of the letter of explanation and all supporting documentsfor the lender to print and place in the consumer's signing package. Ifthe lender is going to have the consumer e-sign with the lender'se-signature technology of choice, there are many options. In certainembodiments, the system may be configured to allow the consumer toe-sign after giving the consumer the opportunity to review thedisclosure letter and the accept it. As shown in FIGS. 54A-54B, thesystem can prepare a PDF of the letter of explanation and all supportingdocuments and publish it to the lender e-signature platform. The systemmay also integrate with the lender's e-signature platform and capturethe e-signature on this screen or use widgets provided by thee-signature platform to capture the e-signature from the consumer, etc.The system may alternatively capture the consumer's e-signature byasking the consumer to re-enter their password and/or use the system'smulti-factor authentication capability to capture a one-time passwordsent to the consumer's phone via either text or a phone call.

FIGS. 55A-55B show an example letter of explanation after e-signing hasbeen completed.

As previously mentioned, parties may also transfer a primary access to abinder, if they still have access (e.g., they have not previouslytransferred it, the consumer has not removed access, and/or their accessto the binder has not expired), to other parties such as mortgageinvestors. As part of this transfer, the party who originally heldprimary access to the binder or who had access to the binder shared withthem may continue to retrieve, for audit or other purposes consistentwith the permissions given by the consumer, any data which theyretrieved during time they had access to the binder. As of the date oftransfer, however, they may no longer request new or refreshed data, oranalysis by the rules engine.

It will be appreciated that the techniques described herein can providea number of advantages to the various parties involved in loans andother financial data sharing and collaboration scenarios. For instance,all parties may benefit from cost reductions related to the reductionsin manual processing and attendant inefficiencies, as well as the lowerlikelihood of fraud. Loan closing times can be reduced in someinstances. These and/or other advantages may in turn lead to increasedprofits. For instance, the ability to perhaps better understand aborrower's overall financial picture may enable a lender to perform abetter price-to-risk analysis. More accurate and/or completecalculations can be made in terms of the borrower's ongoing ability torepay. These and/or other advantages may also lead to improved borrowersatisfaction, quicker funding, less friction between the parties, asense of more control over perceived “key” financial information and/orprocesses, etc.

Although certain example embodiments have been described in connectionwith mortgages, it will be appreciated that the techniques describedherein may be used in connection with other financial products,companies, etc. For instance, the techniques described herein may beused in connection with auto loans, student loans, personal loans,peer-to-peer lending, credit cards, consolidated loans, small businessloans, etc.—as well some or all of the parties involved in the same.

Example Architecture for Providing Visibility into and Partial ControlOver Another Entity's Workflow

Certain example embodiments relate to a workflow management system. Thesystem comprises processing resources including at least one processorand a memory coupled thereto, and a non-transitory computer readablestorage medium. The processing resources are configured to control theworkflow management system to at least: provide a user interface to auser of the workflow management system, the user interface beingconfigured to present to the user information concerning a status of amulti-step workflow being managed by and under control of anotherentity, the multi-step workflow including processing, on a computingplatform remote from and inaccessible to the user (e.g., other than viathe user interface), user data, the user data including user provideddata and/or documents shared from the non-transitory computer readablestorage medium and data and/or documents authorized by a user to beprovided; and responsive to a termination message received from the userand/or a predefined time period elapsing, transmit a signal to thecomputing platform of the another entity that the workflow is to beterminated, the signal causing the computing platform to terminate theworkflow regardless of what step in the workflow is being processed,including regardless of whether responsibility for processing thecurrent step in the workflow resides with the user, the another entity,or a further entity that has partnered with the another entity byrequest of the another entity.

According to certain example embodiments, the user data may be organizedinto one or more logical containers (or binders). The user interface maybe further configured to enable the user to select which user dataelement(s) is/are to be associated with each said logical container.Further user data (e.g., later-entered data and/or data provided byother sources) may be linkable to the logical container(s). Entries maybe linkable to multiple containers, etc.

According to certain example embodiments, the status may indicate thestep in the workflow currently being processed. For example, the statusmay indicate what user data is being analyzed in the step currentlybeing processed and/or a name of a person or organization responsiblefor completing the step currently being processed. Similarly, accordingto certain example embodiments, the status may indicate what steps inthe workflow have been completed, if any. For example, the status mayindicate what user data has been accessed in the completion of allcompleted steps. The indication of the user data that has been accessedis provided on a step-by-step basis in some cases.

According to certain example embodiments, the status may represent thestep in the workflow currently being processed and/or what steps in theworkflow have been completed, if any, at a level of granularityspecified by the another entity.

According to certain example embodiments, at least some of the user datais provided prior to initiation of the multi-step workflow (e.g., beforecompleting a mortgage or other application, etc.). Alternatively, or inaddition, at least some of the user data is user-entered and/orautomatically retrieved from one or more external sources (e.g., once anapplication process has been started). In this regard, at least some ofthe user data may user-entered (e.g., name, address, social securitynumber, etc.) and/or at least some of the data may correspond todocuments uploaded to the workflow management system (e.g., informationretrieved from an external source including, for example, accountstatements, tax transcripts, pay statements, tax returns or tax returndata, gift letters, etc.). Such information may be provided in responseto a request for further information, e.g., from another party.

According to certain example embodiments, the further entity may be anagent of the other entity. According to certain example embodiments, thefurther entity may operate an additional computing platform configuredto electronically analyze at least some information received from theuser, indirectly and via the another entity, on behalf of the anotherentity.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the workflow management system to atleast receive an electronic request for further information from theworkflow and, responsive thereto, prompt the user, via the userinterface, for additional user data, including additional data and/ordocuments, in satisfaction of the electronic request. The electronicrequest for further information from the workflow may originate withanother entity. That entity may in some instances be a party external tothe workflow management system processing user data upon request byanother entity. The electronic request may be issued responsive to arule associated with the workflow.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the workflow management system to atleast receive an electronic request for further information from theworkflow and, responsive thereto: automatically retrieve further userdata, including further data and/or documents, from one or more datasources external to but accessible by the workflow management systemthrough one or more corresponding computer-implemented interfaces,conditioned on the user having provided corresponding credentialinginformation for the one or more data sources; and electronicallytransmit the automatically retrieved further user data to the anotherentity, in satisfaction of the electronic request. For example, the usermay be requested to provide additional data and/or documents in supportof the workflow, and this may be provided automatically,semi-automatically (e.g., requiring one or more manual tasks), and/ormanually. The automatic retrieval and/or electronic transmission may beconditioned on the electronic request being received within a period oftime allotted by the system and/or the user. For instance, the user datamay be organized into one or more logical containers, each said logicalcontainer being shareable with the another entity based on one or moreuser-defined approval policies defined when the respective logicalcontainer is created. In these and/or other cases, the automaticretrieval and/or electronic transmission may be conditioned on the oneor more user-defined approval policies associated with the container(s)being shared with the another entity. In some instances, data relevantto satisfaction of the electronic request may be not directly accessibleby the other entity from the one or more data sources. In someinstances, the processing resources may be further configured to controlthe workflow management system to at least request approval from theuser prior to electronic transmission of the automatically retrievedfurther user data to the another entity, e.g., with the request forapproval being issued following the automatic retrieval, and/or afterthe user is presented with an opportunity to review the automaticallyretrieved further user data.

Non-transitory computer readable storage mediums tangibly storinginstructions for performing the above-summarized and/or other approachesalso are provided by certain example embodiments, as well ascorresponding computer programs. Corresponding methods of operating,making, and/or configuring such systems also are contemplated herein.

Example Architecture for a Vault with Containers of SensitiveInformation

Certain example embodiments relate to a reusable locker where theconsumer has multiple accounts, documents, or other data sources storedin the locker that can then be placed into a container for sharing eachtime the consumer needs to share this data.

In certain example embodiments, a data management system comprisesprocessing resources including at least one processor and a memorycoupled thereto, and a non-transitory computer readable storage medium.The processing resources are configured to control the data managementsystem to at least: enable a user to define a plurality of differentlogical containers over time, each logical container being backed by thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium; receive sensitiveinformation from the user; retrieve sensitive information from externaldata sources where authorized by the user; store an electronicrepresentation of received sensitive information to the non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium; associate received sensitiveinformation with one or more logical containers; store, for each logicalcontainer, a set of rules identifying one or more other parties thathave access to the sensitive information associated with the respectivelogical container, and conditions under which those one or more partiesare granted access to the sensitive information associated with therespective logical container; grant electronic access to a given logicalcontainer, and the sensitive information associated therewith, to agiven party, conditioned on the set of rules associated with the givenlogical container; record data representative of direct and indirectaccessions of logical containers and/or the sensitive informationassociated therewith; and responsive to a user request for a givenlogical container, present to the user an indication of the party orparties that has or have accessed the given logical container associatedwith the user request (e.g., via a user interface or the like). Eachsaid logical container may be reusable over time by different partiesbased at least in part on corresponding updates to the at least one setof rules or a new logical container for different parties. Each of (a)the collection of sensitive information and (b) the content of each saidlogical container, is updatable over time.

According to certain example embodiments, data representative of anindirect accession may be indicative of first party having transferredand/or shared a given logical container and/or the sensitive informationassociated therewith, with one or more other parties.

According to certain example embodiments, recorded data representativeof direct and indirect accessions may provide a party or parties whoperformed the accession potentially to the level of the specific personperforming the accession, times, IP addresses, and other information toclearly identify the party performing the accession for the respectiveaccessions.

According to certain example embodiments, sensitive data associable withlogical containers may be retrievable from a data source external to andnot managed by the data management system. For example, sensitive datafrom the data source may be electronically accessible from the datasource, conditioned on the user providing appropriate credentialinginformation to the data source via the data management system. Theprocessing resources may be configured to control the data managementsystem to at least retrieve sensitive information from a given externaldata source, provided that the user provides or has providedcredentialing information for the given external data source, e.g., inresponse to a request for at least some sensitive information from thegiven external data source.

According to certain example embodiments, sensitive data retrievablefrom a data source may be stored to the non-transitory computer readablestorage medium in some cases. For example, sensitive data retrievablefrom a data source may be stored to the non-transitory computer readablestorage medium, and correspondingly updated, e.g., each time a partysuccessfully accesses a container associated with it, each time a partyrequests the container associated with it be refreshed, each time aparty requests the data source in an associated container it berefreshed, and/or the like.

According to certain example embodiments, sensitive data associable withlogical containers may be dynamically retrievable from a data sourceexternal to and not managed by the data management system, e.g., eachtime a party successfully accesses a container associated with suchsensitive data, with the processing resources being configured to sharesuch sensitive data with each such party without such parties havingdirect access to the data source.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data management system to at leaststore, as a rule associated with a corresponding logical container, anindication received from the user as to whether one or more elements ina logical container of sensitive data is shareable from a first partyexternal to the data management system to another party external to thedata management system. The one or more conditions under which sensitivedata is shareable may include, for example, an identification ofapproved parties, uses, and/or timeframes. Similarly, according tocertain example embodiments, the processing resources may be furtherconfigured to control the data management system to at least store, as arule associated with a corresponding logical container, an indicationreceived from the user as to whether one or more elements in a logicalcontainer of sensitive data is transferable and/or shareable from afirst party external to the data management system to another partyexternal to the data management system.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data management system to at leaststore, as a rule associated with a given logical container, anindication received from the user as to how long the given logicalcontainer and/or the data associated therewith may be used by anauthorized party, an indication received from the user as to whatpurpose(s) the given logical container and/or the data associatedtherewith may be used by an authorized party, an indication receivedfrom the user as to what level of detail about the information in thegiven logical container and/or the data associated therewith isretrievable by an authorized party, an indication received from the useras to one or more conditions under which access to the container ofsensitive data is shareable from a first party external to the datamanagement system to another party external to the data managementsystem, an indication received from the user as to one or moreconditions under which access to the container of sensitive data istransferable from a first party external to the data management systemto another party external to the data management system, and/or thelike. In some cases, the one or more conditions under which sensitivedata is transferable includes an identification of approved parties,uses, and/or timeframes.

Non-transitory computer readable storage mediums tangibly storinginstructions for performing the above-summarized and/or other approachesalso are provided by certain example embodiments, as well ascorresponding computer programs. Corresponding methods of operating,making, and/or configuring such systems also are contemplated herein.

Example Architecture for Analytics

In certain example embodiments, there is provided a data analysis systemcomprising processing resources, including at least one first processorand a first memory operatively coupled thereto. A first data storecomprises sensitive data about a user, as well as a set of data sharingrules, with the set of data sharing rules indicating what sensitive datais sharable and one or more conditions identifying when such sensitivedata is shareable, and the sensitive data comprising informationelements. A second data store (which may be the same as or differentfrom the first data store) comprises at least one set of analysis rules,with the at least one set of analysis rules being system defined and/ordefined by an external party separate from the user. The processingresources are configured to control the data analysis system to at leaststore, to the first data store, sensitive information received from theuser and/or electronically retrieved from a data source external to thedata analysis system in response to the user providing appropriatecredentialing information for the external data source; receive, fromthe external party, a request to process a first predefined set ofsensitive information; and responsive to a request to process a firstpredefined set of sensitive information: determine one or more sets ofanalysis rules to be applied to sensitive information in the firstpredefined set of sensitive information, based at least in part on thereceived request; automatically and programmatically attempt to applyeach rule from each determined set of analysis rules to sensitiveinformation in the first predefined set of sensitive information; store,to the second data store, information about an outcome of the rules thatare successfully applied (e.g., where successful application isindicative of the rule being applied and not the outcome of the appliedrule), the information being associated with the sensitive informationon which the rules are run; and for each rule or set of rules thatindicates that further action is required, re-assess an outcome of arespective rule or an outcome of a set of rules, responsive to at leastone of: (a) automatic retrieval of further information from the userperformed in connection with applicable data sharing rules, (b)application of a heuristic to sensitive information already in and/oradded to the first predefined set of sensitive information, (c)electronic receipt of further information from the user or the externalparty in response to a system-initiated electronic prompt for responsiveinformation, and (d) a determination as to whether the indication thatfurther action is required for the respective rule or set of rules canbe ignored based on input from the external party; and store, to thesecond data store, information about an outcome of the respectivere-assessed rule or set of rules, the information being associated withthe sensitive information on which the respective rule or set of rulesis run. It will be appreciated that there may be multiple iterations ofthis assessing/re-assessing process in different scenarios.

According to certain example embodiments, a plurality of different setsof analysis rules to be applied to sensitive information in the firstpredefined set of sensitive information may be identifiable based on thereceived request. In some cases, at least one of the plurality ofdifferent sets of analysis rules to be applied to sensitive informationin the first predefined set of sensitive information may be systemdefined and potentially one or more of the other different sets ofanalysis rules to be applied to sensitive information in the firstpredefined set of sensitive information may be defined by an externalparty separate from the user. In some cases, each of the plurality ofdifferent sets of analysis rules to be applied to sensitive informationin the first predefined set of sensitive information may be defined byan external party separate from the user. In some cases, the sets ofanalysis rules to be applied to sensitive information in the firstpredefined set of sensitive information may be system defined. Incertain example embodiments, one or more of the rules in the at leastone set of analysis rules may relate to a heuristic.

According to certain example embodiments, re-assessment may be practicedby executing (a), (b), (c), and (d) in order. Similarly, according tocertain example embodiments, re-assessment may be practiced by executing(a), (b), (c), and (d), in a predefined order, until re-assessment isdeemed complete. The sequencing, as opposed to the number of steps, isimplied here.

According to certain example embodiments, the heuristic may includenatural language processing of sensitive information already in and/oradded to the first predefined set of sensitive information; performingoptical character recognition of sensitive information already in and/oradded to the first predefined set of sensitive information; digitallyprocessing sensitive information already in and/or added to the firstpredefined set of sensitive information, and checking the digitallyprocessed sensitive information for one or more pre-identified valuesapplicable to the respective rule being re-assessed; one or moremachine-learned rules; etc. It will be appreciated that rules may beformed as a collection of one or more computer-represented and logicalstatements that may be evaluated, one or more heuristics, mathematicalformulae, and/or the like. Supervised and/or unsupervised machinelearning techniques as described herein may be used in this regard. Forexample, machine learning techniques may be used to generate and/orevaluate rules and/or heuristics.

Regardless of what the heuristics actually are, it will be appreciatedthat heuristics may be applied in initial and/or follow-on assessments,at least in certain example embodiments. In general, it will beappreciated that certain example embodiments cover the concept of rules(including, for example, heuristics) being applied at the level of theonline account and the individual binder. For example, at the accountlevel, one might not be concerned about the transaction that caused anoverdraft, but one might be concerned about the fact the account wasoverdrawn, had a balance that fell below some threshold, etc. At thebinder level, one might be concerned about things like cash flow,debt-to-income ratios, etc. Rules (including heuristics) therefore maybe applied at the most detailed level (e.g., on transactions), thecollection of details (e.g., on an account), and/or the collection ofcollections of details (e.g., on a binder). Rules (including heuristics)may be applied on some or all of these different levels.

According to certain example embodiments, a score may be assignable to,and/or a model may be applicable to sensitive information already inand/or added to the first predefined set of sensitive information, andconsequently output of the score and/or model may be added to the firstpredefined set of sensitive information for consideration by the rules.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastrepeat the automatic and programmatic attempt at application of eachrule from each determined set of analysis rules based on further inputfrom the user and/or the external party, in response to an update to thefirst predefined set of sensitive information, and/or the like.Applicable rules may be hierarchical in certain example embodiments.

According to certain example embodiments, the information about anoutcome may be representative of a state for an information elementprocessed by a corresponding rule, the state being selected from aplurality of different predefined states. A first predefined state maybe indicative of follow-up being needed, and a second predefined statemay be indicative of no follow-up being needed. There may be multipledifferent states indicating different respective needs for follow-up incertain example embodiments.

Details about an issue requiring further action identified with respectto a given information element may be stored as an attribute of thatinformation element in some cases. In certain example embodiments,potential information needed to resolve the issue and/or potentialresolutions associated with the issue identified additionally oralternatively may be stored as an attribute of that information element.

According to certain example embodiments, information about outcomes ofrules may be stored on a rule-by-rule basis and/or on an informationelement by information element basis. In certain example embodiments,information about outcomes of rules may relate to one or more levels ofrules and/or one or more levels of information elements.

According to certain example embodiments, an electronic message may besent to the user and/or external party(s) and convey information aboutthe outcome of each applied rule, if any, and each re-assessed rule orset of rules, if any. In addition, or in the alternative, according tocertain example embodiments, an electronic message may be sent to theuser and/or external party(s) and convey information indicating that (a)one or more rules have been applied, (b) prompts the user and/orexternal party(s) to whom the electronic message is sent to access thesystem via a portal and/or an application programming interface (API) toobtain the results of the rules that have been applied, and/or (c) oneor more information elements have issues that the user and/or externalparty(s) to whom the electronic message is sent needs to review andpotentially address through the system using a portal and/or API.Electronic messages include email messages, text messages,system-to-system messaging, etc.

According to certain example embodiments, a portal and/or API configuredto enable the external party to update a given outcome may be provided.In certain example embodiments, the portal and/or API may be configuredto enable the external party to update a given outcome by selectivelychanging the corresponding state from a state indicating follow-up isneeded to a state indicating follow-up is not needed and/or issue isresolved, and vice versa; to enable the external party to override agiven outcome for a corresponding item of sensitive information bychanging the outcome provided by one or more rules to an outcomeselected from a predefined set of available outcomes that the externalparty determines is more appropriate; to enable the external party toremove a given outcome and any associated state for a corresponding itemof sensitive information; to enable the external party to add a newoutcome for a corresponding item of sensitive information by selectingthe new outcome from a predefined set of available outcomes and settingthe state to a state selected from a set of predefined states for thatoutcome or from a predefined states available system-wide; to enable theexternal party to override a given outcome for a corresponding item ofsensitive information by changing the outcome provided by one or morerules to an outcome that is provided by the external party that theexternal party determines is more appropriate and which is not selectedfrom a predefined set of available outcomes but instead is selected bythe external party from a set of system-wide predefined states to setthe state of that outcome; to enable the external party to update agiven outcome for a corresponding rule by annotating the given outcomewith a note; to enable the external party to update a given outcome fora corresponding information element by annotating the given outcome witha note (e.g., with the note potentially correlating the given ruleand/or sensitive information associated with the rule with otherinformation about the user known to the external party); to enable theuser to provide information responsive to a given outcome for acorresponding information element by annotating the given outcome with anote and/or supplemental documents and/or information; and/or the like.

According to certain example embodiments, a portal and/or API may beconfigured such the user may provide additional information such as anote or notes, document or documents, access to new source or sources ofsensitive information usable by the rules, heuristics, and/or theexternal party which address or help address the issue or issuesidentified with an information element by the rules, heuristics, and/orreview by the external party to identify there is an issue or issueswith the information element.

According to certain example embodiments, information elements may beorganized as hierarchical collections of entries in the first predefinedset of sensitive information. For instance, in certain exampleembodiments, the hierarchical collections of entries in the firstpredefined set of sensitive information may include single informationelements, groupings of related single information elements, one or morecollections of single information elements or groupings related singleinformation elements entries that are proper subsets of the informationelements in the first predefined set of sensitive information, and thefirst predefined set of sensitive information itself. Similarly, incertain example embodiments, the information elements that comprise thesensitive information about the user may be definable as: (a) singularinformation elements, (b) groupings of related and/or non-relatedinformation elements, (c) hierarchies of information elements, (d)hierarchies of hierarchies of information elements, (e) attributes ofother information elements, and/or (f) attributes of hierarchies ofinformation elements. Thus, it will be appreciated that in certainexample embodiments, the hierarchical collections of entries in thefirst predefined set of sensitive information may include collections ofcollections in the first predefined set of sensitive information, andthe first predefined set of sensitive information itself.

In certain example embodiments, an outcome of a first rule may overridean outcome of a second rule, e.g., provided that the first rule relatesto a higher-order information element compared to the second rule,provided that the first rule is a higher-order rule compared to thesecond rule, etc. In certain example embodiments, an outcome of asubsequent rule may be structured to override an outcome of a prior rulebased on the information element or information elements available toit. In certain example embodiments, an outcome of a first rule may bestructured to override an outcome of a second rule, e.g., provided thatthe first rule relates to a subsequent information element compared tothe second rule, provided that the first rule considers a broader set ofinformation elements compared to the second rule, etc. Applicable rulesmay be hierarchical in certain example embodiments.

In certain example embodiments, an outcome of a first rule may overridean outcome of a second rule, provided that the first rule relates to ahigher-order information element compared to the second rule, regardlessof whether the second rule relates to an information element having astate indicating that it is flagged for follow-up. In certain exampleembodiments, an outcome of a first rule may override an outcome of asecond rule, provided that the first rule relates to a higher-orderinformation element compared to the second rule and even though thesecond rule relates to an information element having a state indicatingthat it is flagged for follow-up. In certain example embodiments, anoutcome of a first rule may override an outcome of a second rule,provided that the first rule is a higher-order rule compared to thesecond rule. In certain example embodiments, an outcome of a subsequentrule may be structured to override an outcome of a prior rule. Incertain example embodiments, an outcome of a first rule may bestructured to override an outcome of a second rule, provided that thefirst rule relates to a subsequent information element compared to thesecond rule. In certain example embodiments, an outcome of a first rulemay be structured to override an outcome of a second rule, provided thatthe first rule considers a broader set of information elements comparedto the second rule.

In certain example embodiments, an outcome of a first rule may overridean outcome of a second rule, provided that a heuristic applied to thefirst predefined set of sensitive information as a whole indicates thatthe second rule should be overridden and regardless of whether thesecond rule relates to an information element having a state indicatingthat it is flagged for follow-up. In certain example embodiments, anoutcome of a first rule may override an outcome of a second rule,provided that a heuristic applied to a broader set of informationelements from the first predefined set of sensitive informationindicates that the second rule should be overridden and even though thesecond rule relates to an information element having a state indicatingthat it is flagged for follow-up. In certain example embodiments, anoutcome of a first rule may override an outcome of a second rule,provided that a heuristic applied to a broader set of informationelements from the first predefined set of sensitive informationindicates that the second rule should be overridden and even though thesecond rule relates to an information element having a state indicatingthat it is not flagged for follow-up. In certain example embodiments,different rules may have different levels of sophistication orcomplexity. Moreover, in certain example embodiments, a moresophisticated or complex rule may overrule less sophisticated or complexrule. For example a simple rule implemented in the rules engine may beoverruled by a heuristic, machine learned rule, etc.

In certain example embodiments, based on the data type, the customer,the type of loan, the particular usage of the data, the data elementsshared by the consumer, etc., one or more rules may be applied to thedata. The rules engine may determine whether no rules identify issuesand, if so, then the rules engine, analysis engine, etc., essentiallyoutput nothing about that data item. If only a single rule is applicableand/or only a single rule identifies an issue, then the rules engine mayoutput an indication of the severity of the issue, and the issueassociated to this data element (e.g., a transaction, line item, etc.)or collection of data elements (e.g., an account, collection ofaccounts, etc.). If multiple rules fail inside the rules engine,analysis engine, etc., the rules engine, analysis engine, etc., may makethe decision as to the most relevant rule and then output the severitybased on that rule, and the issue associated with that rule. Certainexample embodiments may involve the outputting of multiple issues perinformation element and/or the application of multiple rules and thedetermination of a consolidated answer for that data item, or collectionof data items.

It will be appreciated that certain example embodiments involve theselective flagging of items of data processed by one or more rules, asopposed to the rules. In other words, in certain example embodiments, itis the sensitive data item, account, or binder that is flagged. An itemmay have only one issue identified with it in certain exampleembodiments, whereas an account or binder can have multiple issuesidentified. For example, a checking account could have multiple issuessuch as, for example, having one or more over drafts, having a decliningaverage daily balance/negative cash flow, loss of a recurring deposit(pay check, etc.). Other example embodiments may allow items to have oneor more associated issues, e.g., as noted above.

The following scenario is an example of a subsequent rule overriding aprior rule. A $75,000 deposit in a bank account is flagged, but furtherin the analysis workflow, it is determined that this is a transfer of$75,000 from a brokerage account the consumer has made available to thesystem. The bank deposit no longer needs follow-up.

The following scenario is an example of a higher-order rule overriding alower-order rule. A $7,500 deposit in a bank account is not flagged, butfurther in the analysis workflow, a $7,500 cash advance is identified ina consumer's credit card account they have made available to the system.Not only is the cash advance in the credit card account flagged forfollow-up, but also the deposit in the bank account is flagged forfollow-up.

The following scenario is an example of a overall compendium analysisoverriding one or more other rules. The consumer has a deposit of$75,000 in their bank account, which is over 20% of their annual income,but upon analysis it is determined the consumer has assets of over $10million, and their debt-to-income ratio is less than 20%. It is notnecessary to determine the reason for this deposit.

In certain example embodiments, where analysis of a subsequent dataitem, a higher order rule, or a heuristic removes the need forfollow-up, this action may be recorded in an audit log. From thelender's perspective, in certain example embodiments, short of lookingat the audit log or processing history, the lender would never know thisitem was ever flagged.

According to certain example embodiments, further sensitive informationmay be electronically receivable responsive to the user providing accessto additional sensitive information pre-stored to the first data store,responsive to the user providing access to additional sensitiveinformation electronically available from one or more other externaldata sources, responsive to the user authorizing access to, andproviding credentialing information for, one or more other external datasources, responsive to the user providing contact information foranother party from whom information is desired, and/or the like.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastapply a further set of rules to attempt to automatically andprogrammatically resolve problematic outcomes.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastcontinue attempting to apply and/or re-assess rules without regard tooutcomes of earlier-processed rules.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastapply a further set of heuristics to attempt to automatically andprogrammatically resolve problematic outcomes. The heuristic may includeone or more machine-learned rules in some instances.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to reapplyand/or re-assess rules without regard to outcomes of earlier-processedrules when new information becomes available regardless of how thatinformation becomes available.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastapply a further set of heuristics to attempt to automatically andprogrammatically resolve problematic outcomes when new informationbecomes available regardless of how that information becomes available.

According to certain example embodiments, a data store configured tostore an audit trail may be provided. In certain example embodiments,the audit trail tracks rule applications, accessions by users and/orexternal parties, actions taken by users and/or external parties, dataretrieval from external data sources and/or internal data sources,and/or the like.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastsend an electronic message to the user and/or external party uponcompletion of the automatic and programmatic attempt at application ofeach rule from each determined set of analysis rules.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastsend an electronic message to the user and/or external party uponcompletion of the processing of the first predefined set of sensitiveinformation in accordance with the request.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastsend an electronic message to the user and/or external party uponcompletion of the automatic and programmatic attempt at when all rules,heuristics, and/or machine learned-rules have completed processing.

According to certain example embodiments, the information about anoutcome may be one or more of a result of a calculation, output from amodel, a score, and/or output from a machine-learned model for one ormore information elements processed by one or more calculations, rules,models, score, machine-learned models. The outputs created bycalculations, models, scores, machine-learned models may become inputfor and drives the application of rules, heuristics, machine-learnedrules, in certain example embodiments. Certain example embodiments mayconsider the classification of all of the transactions across allaccounts and come up with what is a person spending on certainpredefined categories including, for example utilities, transportation,nanny, food, etc. In this case, analysis/rules may be used to determinethis, and this derived data also may be used to output potential issuessuch as, for example, non-discretionary spending being too high, needingto reduce discretionary spending, etc. It will be appreciated that theremay be multiple results from multiple calculations, models, scores, etc.It also will be appreciated that results may be stored to a storagelocation, and/or may be provided to the external party and/or others viathe portal and/or one or more APIs.

According to certain example embodiments, rules that are successfullyapplied are those rules for which results are provided. According tocertain example embodiments, rules that are successfully applied arethose rules for which results are provided, regardless of whether thoseresults indicate that further action is required.

According to certain example embodiments, the processing resources maybe further configured to control the data analysis system to at leastdetermine whether the request to process the first predefined set ofsensitive information is authorized by the user and/or the data sharingrules; and condition the response to the request on this determination.

As a perhaps more tangible scenario, certain example embodiments maypull the bank, brokerage, credit card, and/or other sensitive user datafrom the system. All applicable rules may be applied to all of thepulled data. As part of the application of the rules if, for example, alarge deposit in a checking account is found and a large withdrawal froma brokerage account that matches the amount of money and the timeframeand amount also can be found, then the issue can be automaticallyresolved, or the large deposit can be flagged and the consumer can beasked to confirm that this suspicion is correct. Heuristics and otherforms of sophisticated analysis may be applied to automatically resolveflagged items. If the system cannot resolve the issue with the item, itmay be left flagged, with all flagged items being presented to theconsumer and processor. In certain example embodiments, the processingof rules will not be stopped waiting on an issue to be resolved.

In essence, in some cases, the consumer may add another account orprovide additional information to their locker and ultimately theirbinder, which may resolve the issue, e.g., in accordance with the lockerand binder concepts described herein. A consumer may upload documents,provide comments, enroll other data sources, or correlate with existingdata sources (e.g., they can say a given check deposited into theirchecking account aligns with a given check drawn on the brokerageaccount, etc.). In the event that the consumer enrolls another account,the rules may be able to automatically resolve the issue identified. Ofcourse, there is the chance the additional enrollment or attemptedresolution could also introduce its own set of issues. Thus, the processmay be ongoing and/or iterative in some instances.

A processor/underwriter (user from the external party) may uploaddocuments, provide comments based on their discussions with theconsumer, correlate with existing data sources (e.g., they can say agiven check deposited into the consumer's checking account aligns with agiven check drawn on the consumer's brokerage account, etc.). Theprocessor/underwriter can close (e.g., resolve) items that were left asflagged (e.g., as being unresolved by the rules engine), and they canalso flag items that were not flagged by the rules engine and thenultimately close (resolve) the open issue.

The lender may have access to information that allows them to provideinformation that could resolve the issue. The system may communicatewith the processor/underwriter directly, e.g., in addition to or insteadof the consumer.

Over time, as rules, analytics, and heuristics capabilities learn, moreand more issues may be resolved automatically and/or the fewer items onwhich the consumer, lender, and/or processor/underwriter will have tocollaborate on. Heuristics or other rules may learn over time throughsupervised and/or unsupervised computer learning approaches. Forexample, a rule that may be learned may involve having x number of itemsthat have been flagged at the transaction level and unflagging thoseissues, e.g., as a result or stepping back and looking at all of thedata presented and making a relevant determination (e.g., the total networth and ability repay is sufficiently high). Determining what isacceptable/unacceptable in terms of risk, etc., may be learned as well.For example, although an item might be flagged due to a deposit beingmore than 20% of the person's annual income, the system may have learnedover time that if the person has no outstanding credit card debt, thisis not an issue and the flagged issue can be automatically resolved.

Non-transitory computer readable storage mediums tangibly storinginstructions for performing the above-summarized and/or other approachesalso are provided by certain example embodiments, as well ascorresponding computer programs.

Corresponding methods of operating, making, and/or configuring suchsystems also are contemplated herein.

It will be appreciated that the data may be stored and/or transmittedusing any suitable encrypted or unencrypted format and/or protocol,e.g., depending on the type of data involved, whether the data is beingshared between internal system components and/or with external parties,etc.

It will be appreciated that as used herein, the terms system, subsystem,service, engine, module, programmed logic circuitry, and the like may beimplemented as any suitable combination of software, hardware, firmware,and/or the like. It also will be appreciated that the storage locations,stores, and repositories discussed herein may be any suitablecombination of disk drive devices, memory locations, solid state drives,CD-ROMs, DVDs, tape backups, storage area network (SAN) systems, and/orany other appropriate tangible non-transitory computer readable storagemedium. Cloud and/or distributed storage (e.g., using file sharingmeans), for instance, also may be used in certain example embodiments.It also will be appreciated that the techniques described herein may beaccomplished by having at least one processor execute instructions thatmay be tangibly stored on a non-transitory computer readable storagemedium. It will be appreciated that some or all of the architecturesdescribed herein may be implemented in the cloud. For example, theportals may be web-based portals, the data stores may be cloud storagelocations, the rules engine may be provided as a service on a cloud,etc.

While the invention has been described in connection with what ispresently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment,it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to thedisclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, is intended to cover variousmodifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit andscope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A workflow management system, comprising:processing resources including at least one processor and a memorycoupled thereto; and a non-transitory computer readable storage medium;wherein the processing resources are configured to control the workflowmanagement system to at least: support a user interface for a user ofthe workflow management system, interface with an external computingplatform remote from and inaccessible to the user to enable thecomputing platform to participate in a multi-step computer-mediatedworkflow managed by and under control of another entity, the multi-stepworkflow including operations for processing user data including userprovided data and/or documents shared from the non-transitory computerreadable storage medium and data and/or documents authorized by a userto be provided, wherein the user interface is configured to present tothe user information concerning a status of the workflow, transmit,responsive to a termination message received from the user, a signalfrom the workflow management system to the computing platform of theanother entity to cause the computing platform to terminate running ofthe workflow, the signal causing the computing platform to terminaterunning of the workflow regardless of what step in the workflow is beingprocessed, including regardless of whether responsibility for processingthe current step in the workflow resides with the user, regardless ofwhether responsibility for processing the current step in the workflowresides with the another entity, and regardless of whetherresponsibility for processing the current step in the workflow resideswith a further entity that has partnered with the another entity byrequest of the another entity, and responsive to a predefined timeperiod elapsing, cause the computing platform to terminate the workflowregardless of what step in the workflow is being processed, includingregardless of whether responsibility for processing the current step inthe workflow resides with the user, regardless of whether responsibilityfor processing the current step in the workflow resides with the anotherentity, and regardless of whether responsibility for processing thecurrent step in the workflow resides with a further entity that haspartnered with the another entity by request of the another entity. 2.The system of claim 1, wherein the user data is organized into one ormore logical containers.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the userinterface is further configured to enable the user to select which userdata element(s) is/are to be associated with each said logicalcontainer.
 4. The system of claim 2, wherein at least some of the userdata is provided prior to initiation of the multi-step workflow.
 5. Thesystem of claim 2, wherein at least some of the user data isuser-entered and/or automatically retrieved from one or more externalsources.
 6. The system of claim 5, wherein at least some of the userdata is user-entered and at least some of the data corresponds todocuments uploaded to the workflow management system.
 7. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the processing resources are further configured tocontrol the workflow management system to at least receive an electronicrequest for further information from the workflow and, responsivethereto, prompt the user, via the user interface, for additional userdata, including additional data and/or documents, in satisfaction of theelectronic request.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein the electronicrequest for further information from the workflow originates withanother entity.
 9. The system of claim 7, wherein the electronic requestfor further information from the workflow originates with a partyexternal to the workflow management system processing user data uponrequest by another entity.
 10. The system of claim 7, wherein theelectronic request is issued responsive to a rule associated with theworkflow.
 11. The system of claim 1, wherein the status indicates thestep in the workflow currently being processed.
 12. The system of claim11, wherein the status indicates what user data is being analyzed in thestep currently being processed and/or a name of a person or organizationresponsible for completing the step currently being processed.
 13. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the status indicates what steps in theworkflow have been completed, if any.
 14. The system of claim 13,wherein the status indicates what user data has been accessed in thecompletion of all completed steps.
 15. The system of claim 14, whereinthe indication of the user data that has been accessed is provided on astep-by-step basis.
 16. The system of claim 1, wherein the statusrepresents the step in the workflow currently being processed and/orwhat steps in the workflow have been completed, if any, at a level ofgranularity specified by the another entity.
 17. The system of claim 1,wherein the further entity is an agent of the another entity.
 18. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the further entity operates an additionalcomputing platform configured to electronically analyze at least someinformation received from the user, indirectly and via the anotherentity, on behalf of the another entity.
 19. The workflow managementsystem of claim 1, wherein the signal triggers revocation of access toat least some of the user data in order to cause termination of theworkflow, during midstream processing of the workflow.
 20. The workflowmanagement system of claim 1, wherein the predefined time periodelapsing causes the workflow to terminate, during midstream processingof the workflow.
 21. A workflow management system, comprising:processing resources including at least one processor and a memorycoupled thereto; and a non-transitory computer readable storage medium;wherein the processing resources are configured to control the workflowmanagement system to at least: support a user interface for a user ofthe workflow management system, interface with an external computingplatform remote from and inaccessible to the user to enable thecomputing platform to participate in a multi-step computer-mediatedworkflow managed by and under control of another entity, the multi-stepworkflow including operations for processing user data including userprovided data and/or documents shared from the non-transitory computerreadable storage medium and data and/or documents authorized by a userto be provided, wherein the user interface is configured to present tothe user information concerning a status of the workflow, transmit,responsive to a termination message received from the user, a signalfrom the workflow management system to the computing platform of theanother entity to cause the computing platform to terminate running ofthe workflow, the signal causing the computing platform to terminaterunning of the workflow regardless of what step in the workflow is beingprocessed, including regardless of whether responsibility for processingthe current step in the workflow resides with the user, regardless ofwhether responsibility for processing the current step in the workflowresides with the another entity, and regardless of whetherresponsibility for processing the current step in the workflow resideswith a further entity that has partnered with the another entity byrequest of the another entity, responsive to a predefined time periodelapsing, cause the computing platform to terminate the workflowregardless of what step in the workflow is being processed, includingregardless of whether responsibility for processing the current step inthe workflow resides with the user, regardless of whether responsibilityfor processing the current step in the workflow resides with the anotherentity, and regardless of whether responsibility for processing thecurrent step in the workflow resides with a further entity that haspartnered with the another entity by request of the another entity, andreceive an electronic request for further information from the workflowand, responsive thereto: automatically retrieve further user data,including further data and/or documents, from one or more data sourcesexternal to but accessible by the workflow management system through oneor more corresponding computer-implemented interfaces, conditioned onthe user having provided corresponding credentialing information for theone or more data sources; and electronically transmit the automaticallyretrieved further user data to the another entity, in satisfaction ofthe electronic request.
 22. The system of claim 21, wherein theautomatic retrieval and/or electronic transmission is conditioned on theelectronic request being received within a period of time allotted bythe system and/or the user.
 23. The system of claim 21, wherein the userdata is organized into one or more logical containers, each said logicalcontainer being shareable with the another based on one or moreuser-defined approval policies defined when the respective logicalcontainer is created.
 24. The system of claim 23, wherein the automaticretrieval and/or electronic transmission is conditioned on the one ormore user-defined approval policies associated with the container(s)being shared with the another entity.
 25. The system of claim 21,wherein data relevant to satisfaction of the electronic request is notdirectly accessible by the another entity from the one or more datasources.
 26. The system of claim 21, wherein the processing resourcesare further configured to control the workflow management system to atleast request approval from the user prior to electronic transmission ofthe automatically retrieved further user data to the another entity. 27.The system of claim 26, wherein the request for approval is issuedfollowing the automatic retrieval, and after the user is presented withan opportunity to review the automatically retrieved further user data.28. The system of claim 21, wherein the user data is organized into oneor more logical containers.
 29. The system of claim 28, wherein thefurther user data is linkable to the logical container(s).
 30. Aworkflow management method for use with a workflow management systemcomprising processing resources including at least one processor and amemory coupled thereto, and a non-transitory computer readable storagemedium, the method comprising: supporting a user interface for a user ofthe workflow management system; interfacing with an external computingplatform remote from and inaccessible to the user to enable thecomputing platform to participate in a multi-step computer-mediatedworkflow managed by and under control of another entity, the multi-stepworkflow including operations for processing user data including userprovided data and/or documents shared from the non-transitory computerreadable storage medium and data and/or documents authorized by a userto be provided; presenting, to the user via the user interface, userinformation concerning a status of the workflow; transmitting,responsive to a termination message received from the user, a signalfrom the workflow management system to the computing platform of theanother entity to cause the computing platform to terminate running ofthe workflow, the signal causing the computing platform to terminaterunning of the workflow regardless of what step in the workflow is beingprocessed, including regardless of whether responsibility for processingthe current step in the workflow resides with the user, regardless ofwhether responsibility for processing the current step in the workflowresides with the another entity, and regardless of whetherresponsibility for processing the current step in the workflow resideswith a further entity that has partnered with the another entity byrequest of the another entity.
 31. A non-transitory computer readablestorage medium tangibly storing instructions that, when executed by ahardware processor of a workflow management system, performfunctionality comprising: supporting a user interface for a user of theworkflow management system; interfacing with an external computingplatform remote from and inaccessible to the user to enable thecomputing platform to participate in a multi-step computer-mediatedworkflow managed by and under control of another entity, the multi-stepworkflow including operations for processing user data including userprovided data and/or documents shared from the non-transitory computerreadable storage medium and data and/or documents authorized by a userto be provided; presenting, to the user via the user interface, userinformation concerning a status of the workflow; transmitting,responsive to a termination message received from the user, a signalfrom the workflow management system to the computing platform of theanother entity to cause the computing platform to terminate running ofthe workflow, the signal causing the computing platform to terminaterunning of the workflow regardless of what step in the workflow is beingprocessed, including regardless of whether responsibility for processingthe current step in the workflow resides with the user, regardless ofwhether responsibility for processing the current step in the workflowresides with the another entity, and regardless of whetherresponsibility for processing the current step in the workflow resideswith a further entity that has partnered with the another entity byrequest of the another entity; and responsive to a predefined timeperiod elapsing, causing the computing platform to terminate theworkflow regardless of what step in the workflow is being processed,including regardless of whether responsibility for processing thecurrent step in the workflow resides with the user, regardless ofwhether responsibility for processing the current step in the workflowresides with the another entity, and regardless of whetherresponsibility for processing the current step in the workflow resideswith a further entity that has partnered with the another entity byrequest of the another entity.